Foster's Without Foster's
by Fabrosi
Summary: Mac tries to figure out if his imaginary friend, Bloo, is a supernatural being or a hallucination. As he delves into his past, he realizes that he cannot answer this question without first answering some difficult questions about himself.
1. Chapter 1: Friend

Foster's without Foster's

Chapter 1: Friend

I have an imaginary friend. This would be totally unremarkable, except for the fact that I'm seventeen years old.

It started so long ago, before any of my coherent memories. I must have been a baby or a toddler, because by the time I was six I already thought of him as a close friend. Sometimes I watch old videos of myself as a baby, crawling around the old house, babbling, drooling, smiling. I try to look for some sign of him, some tiny scrap of understanding as to how he came to be.

Where do I look? Did he stand atop the walls of my crib, the way he now does at the foot of my bed? Would he have followed close to me, or watched me from high up places? What exactly did he look like back then? Of course, I don't see him in the videos—he's imaginary, after all. Instead, I start by looking at my eyes—simple, carefree, empty. I follow my infant gaze to oddly far away corners, the tops of bookshelves, the chandelier, closed cupboards that I smile at but make no effort to open. Every time I see my eyes wander somewhere strange, I think: was that him? What was he doing? Could he talk to me? Was he somehow older and wiser than I was?

There is something off, something deeply uncanny in watching myself as a baby. The eyes aren't right; there is something wrong in my emotions, my identity. The person I'm seeing isn't really me, nor is it human yet. Is it odd to think that a baby cannot be fully human? That I had to work my way up to humanity? That would mean there is no soul, which I can accept, but if I wasn't human, what was I? Maybe "human" is just a meaningless concept. (I know I'm supposed to look at babies and just think "Oh, how cute", and usually I do, but it's very different when I'm looking at myself.)

Back to my imaginary friend—what do I remember? I can't trust the nebulous mists of my imperfect memory. I look at old crayon drawings of the same unmistakable blue shape, the nigh-illegible journals in which mangled attempts at English words dance haphazardly across timid, straight blue lines which have no choice but to sigh and acquiesce to the chaos. "Bloo play with me today. We playd tag." _That's not what I'm interested in, _I want to sigh in exasperation to my younger self. _Tell me what he was. What was his personality like? Did he teach you about life, or did you teach him?_

He must have come from my mind, which doesn't explain his decade-long disappearance. He must have left sometime around the time my parents died, though strangely enough, I have no specific memories of his leaving. One day he was there, the next he was gone.

I wish I could sort everything out, think through my life chronologically, but I can't be sure of what order things happened in, or whether some things happened at all. If I have an imaginary friend, why not imaginary memories? Why not an imaginary life? What is the mind but a repository for scattered, disconnected, meaningless bits of information which we then try to organize into a narrative we can live with, a world we can live in?

As I try to fall asleep, he stands there in the darkness, motionless, smiling.


	2. Chapter 2: Reunion

Chapter 2: Reunion

They day he returned was on a warm weekend in Fall, not long before school started. I was walking absentmindedly down a network of winding roads, a subdued suburban neighborhood near my own. _I could pass through the woods and walk to school, _I thought. Why not?

The towering evergreens seemed to frame the trail entrance nicely, though it might have just been the cul-de-sac centering my attention. What would this area have looked like two hundred years ago, just trees among trees? I tried to imagine the contours beneath the roads and houses covered in the ferns and nettles of the forest. Was the forest not still underneath the asphalt, in the lairs of sediment, the burrowing creatures, the teeming bacteria? How strange, to think that the idea of the road might be more significant than the thing itself.

As I trod along the trail, I stopped in my tracks. There he was, balanced on the stump left behind by a proud old growth. Small and blue, stark against the dried leaves and pine needles that littered the path. The pounding in my head, the rapidly rising swell in my stomach was something inside me crying out that he _should not be._

"Mac!" He grinned and spread his arms wide as I drew close, my legs dragged inexorably forward like a puppet's in my trance. "You can _see_ me! Finally! It's been _way_ too long!"

My mouth formed his name a few seconds before I consciously recalled who he was. "Bloo?"

"Miss me much?" He hopped down, his movement as natural to him as it was unnatural to me. How had I never noticed how uncanny he was, what a jarring scar on time and space? Nearly shapeless, yet almost human. Familiar, yet otherworldly.

"I don't understand." I shuddered as he hugged my shins—I could actually _feel_ his arms. _What the Hell?_ "How can you exist?" I asked. "I imagined you. I talked to you and saw you, but that was just pretend. You weren't actually _there._"

Bloo laughed, the same sound I'd heard so many times before, so long ago. "Of _course_ you imagined me, but that doesn't mean I wasn't _there!"_ I looked uncertainly into his big eyes, that old disarming smile.

As we took a long, roundabout path back home, I found it hard to talk to him without glancing over my shoulder every other sentence to see if anyone would hear me. There were virtually no cars driving, (this place was too isolated) but people might be out on their lawns as we passed by. What would they see? A sketchy teenager, looking at the ground and mumbling to himself. A fully-grown version of the soulless doppelganger from my baby videos.

"I tried to get in touch with you," said Bloo, "but you were always so _busy._ Until today, I thought you'd lost your imagination for good."

"I imagine plenty." _Why does my tone sound defensive? _I wondered. _Those words didn't come out the way they sounded in my head._ "I draw," I went on, hopefully more calmly. "I come up with lots of ideas. It's just that I know what's real and what's not... at least, I thought I did."

Bloo blew a raspberry at no one in particular. "Is that so? Let me ask you something: elves—real, or imaginary?"

"Imaginary. But I don't get how…"

"Dinosaurs. Real, or imaginary?"

"Real."

"Wrong. They're imaginary."

"What are you talking about?" I wasn't sure where he was going with this. "Of _course _dinosaurs were real. There are countless fossils. They've been carbon dated and everything."

I grew stiff as I noticed someone far up ahead, on the same side of the road as me. After some hesitation, I crossed over to the right. Bloo followed close behind.

"Fossil evidence tells us that _something_ was alive back then," he explained. "Our imagination fills in the blanks and creates the creatures that we understand as 'dinosaurs'. You know what I heard they're saying nowadays? That the dinosaurs had _feathers._ You can't possibly tell me that if you saw a drawing of a dinosaur with feathers, your first reaction would be 'Oh, that's _totally_ real, that _must_ have been a thing.'"

I didn't say anything. I glanced over at the woman on the other side of the road, trying not to look too shifty. I was acutely aware of the sound the gravel made beneath my feet. I thought I could near another, different noise from Bloo, but it might have been my imagination.

If he noticed my unease, he didn't show it. "Let's try another one: Thomas Jefferson."

"Imaginary," I said, as quietly as I could.

"Correct. But do you understand _why?"_

I held silent for a while. With one look over my shoulder, I confirmed that I'd put some distance between myself and the woman. "When we talk about him, we're talking about the legend. He was a founding father who wrote the Declaration of Independence. But he also owned slaves. He did a lot of things that most people don't remember."

Bloo hummed thoughtfully. "E for effort. You're getting at it, I guess. I would've added that when people bring up his name, they're usually trying to win an argument. 'Thomas Jefferson wrote this; therefore, the protests are justified. Thomas Jefferson said this; therefore, the dollar bill shouldn't read "in God we trust".' He's a legend, true, but he's also a tool we use to get what we want when someone disagrees with us."

"How depressing. I wouldn't want to be him."

"At least people remember him. Better an oversimplified legacy than none at all." We started to move uphill. I tried to figure out how Bloo moved without any legs, but the undulating, vibrating motion of the underside of his body was too complex for me to make sense of. Was he some kind of giant slug? Did he have a skeleton?

"Where exactly have you been?" I asked. "It's been, what, ten years?"

"Something like that. I've been following you around, but it was like you couldn't see or hear me. I guess something must have changed."

I shivered slightly. Just how much of my life had he seen? _He must know me better than I know myself,_ I realized.

…

By the time we got home, I still wasn't sure he was really there. My uncle was still out, so we talked freely as I warmed up some soup.

"Where exactly did you come from, anyway? I remember when I was little, I would always try really hard to imagine you and sort of convince myself I could see you in front of me. Now, it's like you can handle that all on your own."

"We were less separate back then," he explained, grabbing a sandwich from the fridge. "You were still making me. Now, I guess I'm here to stay."

I looked out the window as I ate. The trees waved gently at me in the wind, or maybe they were waving at Bloo. "If no one could see you, does that mean you were able to spy on people?"

"To a limited extent. I was never able to go that far from you."

"You used to help explain things to me, like when I was reading and I didn't understand something."

He shrugged. "I thought you explained things to me, but maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Didn't you teach me to read?"

"Yeah, maybe."

…

Later, I sat on my bed, trying to think of something to say to Bloo. There should have been years' worth of catching up to do, and I shouldn't have been so uncomfortable around a childhood friend. I felt strangely guilty.

"I remember you played a lot of Pokémon right here, in this spot," said Bloo as he stared at the ceiling from my beanbag chair. "That was after you stopped seeing me, of course. You were so excited about it. You would hear about all these urban legends at school, and then go straight home and play the game to see if they were true."

"I never did find Mew. I knew a guy who got one, but he wouldn't tell me how."

I wondered if Bloo's memory was better than mine. "What was going on right around the time I stopped seeing you?"

"Beats me. You moved into this house, started going to a new school, and… that's it, really."

"That would've been… first, second grade?"

"Mrs. Harrison, Ms. Ledger."

"My uncle would drive me. I listened to Raffi in the car. There was a song called 'Baby Beluga'."

"You never went outside at night because you thought there were werewolves living in the woods."

"There were so many different kinds of tag at school. Regular tag, freeze tag, hotdog tag, French tag."

"There was always a cat hanging around near the playground. No one ever figured out whose it was."

"One Halloween I made a scarecrow with a bunch of my friends. We took turns beating it up."

"Didn't a kid die at school or something?"

"He wasn't dead. He just went to the hospital."

"Yeah, and he never came back."

…

As I tried to fall asleep, I felt his gaze on me, like a cool breeze from another world. I squinted at him in the darkness to see him standing at the foot of my bed, staring straight at me. Did he think I was asleep? Just in case, I pretended to be. I tried to listen for the smallest movement, but he was completely silent.

When I awoke, he was curled up in a pile of my clothes, snoring softly. I'm still not sure he's really asleep when he does that.


	3. Chapter 3: School

Chapter 3: School

Just as I'd expected, going to school with Bloo was a very uncomfortable experience. As I moved through the hallways, keeping my eyes straight ahead, he kept close to me, looking around and talking nonstop.

"What math were you going to be in, again? I'm trying to think if we'll know anyone there. Shaun was in your class last year but he's an idiot, so he'll probably have to retake it. You should ask him about it, but be subtle about it. Everyone's _texting._ Why do they do that while they're walking? They're gonna bump into each other—yup, right there, I called it. What time is it? Are we gonna be on time? Hey, I haven't seen _her _around. I think she's new. Cute, too. You should ask her out. You're taking honors classes, right? Or am I thinking of something else?"

As I took my seat in history class, Bloo hopped up onto the table to my right. The Asian girl seated there seemed to look right through him.

A dumpy, grey-haired man made himself noticeable at the front of the room as he began to write on the whiteboard.

"Oh, cool, it's Mr. Lafler. You had him last year. He was really easy, remember?" I chanced a glance towards Bloo. Was he _trying_ to make this difficult?

"Good morning, everyone," wheezed Mr. Lafler. I could practically hear the phlegm in his throat. "Some of you had me last year, but in case you didn't or just can't remember, I'll write my name up here…"

He rambled his way through his introduction, syllabi were passed around, and I started doodling in my notebook. The pencil curved absently, forming a half-circle. What was that going to be? I added straight lines on either side, closed it off…

I stopped, realizing I was drawing Bloo. I erased what I'd done. _A dragon,_ I thought. _I haven't done a dragon in a while._ I made the neck nice and long, the teeth wickedly curved. The catlike eye turned out great on the first try, but I couldn't quite close off the head until I thought to give him webbed ears. He looked a little bare, so I started adding scales. _One, two, three, four…_

"_Mac!"_ Bloo stage-whispered, stretching out the vowel in my name. _"Maaaaaaaac!"_ I noticed he was leaning over, examining my drawing, so I wrote _not now._

He frowned. "Mac, shouldn't we take notes?"

For some reason, that made me feel a little guilty, but I wrote _I can just read the book later._ He shrugged. After a few seconds, he said "Hey, that girl over there is pretty hot, huh?"

_I don't know._

"Well, of _course_ you don't! You didn't even look!"

Cautiously, I looked at Bloo out of the corner of my eye to see where he was pointing. Following the direction of the blunt nub he had for a hand, I beheld a breathtakingly gorgeous redhead sitting near the corner, chewing gum. I thought to myself that Bloo's taste had been spot-on.

_She's ok._

As the lecture wore on and I continued to flesh out my dragon, I was continually distracted by the words I'd written next to it. _Not now._ _I can just read the book later. I don't know. She's ok._ How meaningless it was without Bloo's context, what a random jumble of disconnected thoughts.

I ate lunch alone. If Bloo thought it was odd, he kept it to himself. At the end of the day, I returned home, started on my homework, and finished my dragon.


	4. Chapter 4: Mother

Chapter 4: Mother

I still haven't given up on finding the out the truth by looking back, plucking out dripping fragments of causality from the sludgy pools of my memory. Knowing what I do now about Bloo, I have to look back on my past like a sprawling, convoluted dream, sifting through patterns and moments that seemed perfectly normal at the time and trying to pin down what was strange.

I dredge up imagery from as far back as I can. The blue shape was always accompanied by its own motion, even when it was holding perfectly still. It was as though I was attuned to Bloo's vibrations, his constantly firing nerves linked to mine despite the distance. Running, tripping, climbing, crawling. Why didn't I realize sooner that the blue shape had been real, or that it should have been impossible to actually _see_ him? Shouldn't all animals have a sense for something so uncanny? Dogs are supposed to bark at aliens and ghosts, run and hide from earthquakes before they hit. When we see a very large animal in the woods, we immediately know that either it shouldn't be there, or we shouldn't. We detect the uncanny valley in CGI representations of humans, realistic robots, poorly designed cartoon animals. Why did I accept Bloo into my budding universe so easily? Where were my instincts? Maybe this is why he returned: he had a free pass into my consciousness. He'd gotten into the system early and shut down my mind's defenses against unreality.

I remember him guiding me down a trail somewhere, saying there was somewhere he wanted me to see. When I got there, I didn't understand what I was looking at, and he didn't know the word for it. Stones in circles, or maybe they were cinder blocks in rows? I must have been about five, so the grey shapes could've been anything, really.

I wonder if Bloo can see into my head. He must know how he unnerves me—how could he not? What is he planning? Is he going to stand back and watch while I search for ways to get rid of him? Maybe he'll tell me where he came from, or maybe he'll just lie. I hate to think that I might be doing just what he wants me to, moving blindly down a deadly path whose end I won't see until it's too late.

Lately I've started seeing my parents in my dreams.

Hoping against hope that Bloo can't read my thoughts, I only go over the old tapes, drawings and notebooks when he isn't around. The disconnected pieces of my childhood are like shards of a mirror that reflects meaningless slices of my identity: new words as I learned them, a vacation to Arizona, the food I ate, a game Bloo made up. We would make potions, each of us gathering half of the ingredients in order to save time. Soda, cleaning fluid, ketchup, insecticide. It's lucky I didn't drink that.

One of these days I should go back to my old neighborhood. I like to think there must be something for me to find there, clues that will help me navigate my mind. Maybe next weekend.

I find myself watching a video from when I was five. I see myself grinning, running through the house, putting my hands up against the walls and then pushing off as if to propel myself. I hear my mother smiling behind the camera. "I'm a racer!" I say.

I hold my breath as I hear the word "Bloo" clumsily pass my lips. "What was that?" asked my mother. Her voice sounds unexceptional, like a bland stranger's. Shouldn't it sound more familiar?

"Bloo's racing too," I repeat. "We're racist." (Races? Racers?) My mother must have heard the same thing I did, because she laughs. Child-me continues to run around in his strange fashion. I watch my eyes closely, narrowing down Bloo's location. Sure enough, I decide he must be running with me, staying close, forcing me to twist my head around as he passed me. He's about at my eye level, which seems consistent with his size after his reappearance.

What was my mother like? Was she intelligent? I know she was a pharmacist, but not much else. I like to think she and my father would have been proud of me, that I'm doing what they would have wanted, that dead people have meaningful goals and wishes that persist beyond the moment of zero brain activity.

I sit in the attic, watching yet another video, hiding from a part of my mind. I'd like to do something about the spider moving slowly across the ceiling, but I have nothing to reach it with.


	5. Chapter 5: Pretend

Chapter 5: Pretend

The weekend after he came back, Bloo insisted we go for a long walk in the woods. I got the feeling he had something planned that he wasn't telling me, but I went anyway, following close behind him as the cool shade enveloped us.

We made our way down a gentle slope along a ridge that opened downward and outward into a panorama of lush green. "Mac," says Bloo, "how long has it been since you've played pretend?"

I think back. "I think some of my friends and I tried, once, back when I was about twelve. It was hard, though; everything felt awkward and empty. It came so naturally when I was younger, but I guess you lose the knack as you get older."

Bloo shook his head. I suspected I was about to learn something. "The problem wasn't that you were too old. You were just self-conscious. The ability is still there, it's just held back by the part of your brain that worries about how you'll look."

"I don't think there are many adults out there who still play pretend."

Bloo picked up a stick and started poking at the dead leaves in front of him as he walked, like a blind person. "What do you call actors, then? What do you think stage hypnotism is? UFO conventions, spiritual experiences?"

"I guess you're right."

"It's obvious."

As we passed one trail intersection after another, I started to worry that we would get lost. "Where are we going?"

"You haven't figured it out yet?"

I waited for him to interpret my lack of response as a _no_, but he stayed silent. I hadn't been this far into the woods in over a year. As I saw bright sunlight striking grass up ahead, I finally realized where we were.

We passed into a large clearing, where the trees' lower-hanging branches gently brushed up against the sides of a two-story shed. I saw clumps of placed dirt, broken glass, strewn-about wooden boards, beer cans—everything looked just like it was supposed to. There was no doubt about it now; Bloo had, indeed, been watching me during the years I couldn't see him.

"You've been here with all your other friends, so I figured we could take a trip here, too." He placed his hands on his hips as he admired the splintering, possibly-rotting walls of the shed, the bent, rusty nails poking out at aggressive, spiteful angles.

"I've been here with them, but there's nothing to _do._ Usually we just sort of pass through on our way to somewhere else." Many of the trails exited the forest near commercial districts or parks—sites of actual civilization, as opposed to the secluded, wooded vale that I called home.

"I remember when you first found this place, you thought a homeless guy was living here. Remember?"

I sighed quietly. "Alright, we've seen the shed. Is there anything else you wanted to do, or are we heading home now?"

He arched an eyebrow at me. "Not yet. You're going to relearn what it's like to play pretend."

"No," I said flatly.

"C'mon," implored Bloo. "It's easy. Just go for it."

"I don't know how."

"That's what we're here for. Go on, pick up a stick and stab some goblins or whatever."

I found the straightest, sturdiest-looking branch I could and waved it awkwardly through the air, not sure what I was supposed to experience.

Bloo stroked the chin he didn't have, nodding thoughtfully like a director watching a scene play out. "You're not feeling goblins. Okay, we'll try something else."

"I feel like an idiot."

"You'll work through it. C'mon, what kind of bad guys can you work with? Robots? Aliens? Muslims? Zombies? The one percent?"

I tried to think of some group that I wanted to skewer with a sword. I couldn't really get excited about terrorists—after all, I had no context for understanding criminals, let alone terrorists. Had I ever been bullied? Not seriously. Suddenly, an idea occurred to me.

"Why don't you just tell me what I can work with? Shouldn't you know?"

"You can't do it yourself? Can you say 'epic fail'?"

"For God's sake, don't say 'epic fail'."

He raised an eyebrow and smiled knowingly at me. My eyes widened as it dawned on me: I had found my enemy.

Within less than two minutes, I was swinging the stick in furious arcs through the air, twirling around like a madman and screaming at the top of my lungs.

_"Shut the fuck up about 9gag! No one wants to hear your bullshit!" _In the back of my mind, I was dimly aware of Bloo standing back and watching me with considerable amusement, but in my rage, I was well past the point of caring. _"You don't want me to taze you, bro? I'll do more than that, I'll tear your fucking throat out!"_

Bloo nodded sagely. "You have learned much."

_"Am I mad? Am I mad? Of course I'm fucking mad! You dead, bro? You dead?"_

The adrenaline rush was as intense as it was unexpected. I could hear blood pounding in my ears I imagined stabbing through Guy Fawkes masks and meme-blazoned T-shirts. I nearly wept with joy as I realized how much I'd been missing out, what a thrill there was to be had in righteous hatred.

_"Fuck off with your catbread! Fuck off with your rage faces and troll faces and the rest of that bullshit!"_ As I swung the stick against the shed's support beam, my weapon snapped in half and the moment was shattered. I was left breathing heavily, staring at the ground, exhausted and ashamed, yet experiencing a strange sense of catharsis.

Slowly, I looked up at Bloo. I bit my lip as I saw his smirk. "Well?" he asked. "How do you feel?"

I took a long, shaking breath as I straightened my back. "Did you know that would happen?" He nodded. I started pacing around the clearing. "Okay, so I guess I _can_ play pretend. I'm still not sure it's something I enjoy though. It felt so _weird."_

Bloo waved dismissively. "That's just your self-consciousness kicking back in. You gotta work on getting rid of that—it's not a quality that'll help you out much in life."

"If I lose my sense of self-consciousness, I'll look stupid in public."

"Then I guess the question is: which _you_ do you care more about? The you that others perceive, or the you that you experience?"

"I'm probably best off just trying to balance the two."

"You were supposed to pick the second one."

"You haven't convinced me that I should."

As we made our way back home, I felt myself drifting easily down the trail, more relaxed, less aware, less _placed _than I normally was. The trees rolled by like a slow pan in a pretentious movie; the trail contracted, swelled and slithered beneath me, as though it were alive. There was some subtle change in how I perceived the environment around me.

What exactly had Bloo done? What was his game?


	6. Chapter 6: Camping

Chapter 6: Camping

I move across the grass easily. I must be going a hundred miles an hour and I can feel the wind around me. I fall, get up, and keep running. The picnic tables are there, the trees are there, the gravel road is there. I love how cool the grass is, but it's too wet to sit on. I sit on it anyway.

My mom and dad smile from over there. I wave. It's so easy to run, I think I could run around the whole world. The world is round. I know because I have a globe, only it's at home and right now we're camping. We're going to make s'mores later around the fire, and then I'll sleep in a sleeping bag in one of the tents.

Bloo is all the way up in the tree. He's so high! I see him waving at me from the tallest branches. "How did you get up there, Bloo?"

"Here, I'll show you!" he runs sideways all the way down the big tall trunk of the tree, and then he runs all the way back up. The tree is a hundred feet tall. I try to run up, too, but it just makes me fall. I can't go up to where Bloo is, so he comes down to me.

"Guess what?" he asks.

"What?"

"When it gets dark, we're going on a secret mission. You'll have to find a flashlight."

"What's the mission?"

"I can't tell you, because it's secret." I smile. Secrets are fun. We run some more, until we get tired. Then we eat sandwiches.

…

A long time later, it starts to get dark. I gather around the fire with my mom and dad and we make s'mores. I don't tell them about my secret mission. Soon they are talking and I can sneak away to where the flashlight is. Bloo and I go into the woods.

The trail is very, very long. It's dark and scary but Bloo seems like he knows the way. Finally he says "We're getting close."

I look around with the flashlight to see what he is trying to show me. We go into a big clearing where there are gray blocks all around, all lined up. They all have names and numbers written on them.

"What is this place?" I ask.

"It's a special kind of place. I don't know what it's called."

"Why are we here?"

"Because this is where your parents are going to be."

"Why?"

Bloo smiles. "It's a secret."

The mission wasn't as much fun as I thought, but another secret sounds like fun. Bloo and I go back to the tent, get in our sleeping bags, and go to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7: Girl

Chapter 7: Girl

How was I supposed to concentrate at school with Bloo yammering on about everything? That girl was hot, that guy got arrested for drunk driving, that teacher was having an affair with that other teacher, those dogs outside were having sex. Being observant is a highly overrated skill. Really, how much of the world around us is even worth noticing?

Yet, as I passed through the hallway, I couldn't help noticing. _That guy just said "rage face" out loud, like an exclamation. Someone definitely said "challenge accepted." _

"…Yo, check out this jacket. You jelly, bro?"

"…So I ended up playing on single player for like four hours, and I was like, forever alone!"

"You just made today twenty percent cooler."

I grinded my teeth and balled my hand into a fist inside my pocket.

Thankfully, Bloo helped my study habits more than he hurt them. Math problems rode atop the backs of my dragons; dates and names from the Renaissance slithered through my mazes; my lions chased chemistry diagrams; physics equations climbed across the peaks of treacherous, jagged mountains. To my pleasant surprise, my doodles and my notes were far more compatible that I'd expected. Bloo also took it upon himself to help me with my social life, as he did one fateful lunch.

"Isn't that the girl you're into?"

I turned my head towards the table where he was pointing. There, as I'd known before looking, was the red-haired girl I'd had my eyes on for weeks.

"I think you pointed her out to me once. You said she was hot, remember?"

"Yeah, which is why you're extremely attracted to her. You should go say hi."

"I don't need to say hi. I'm fine right here."

"You're eating alone."

"That's because you're here."

"You don't have to respond to everything I say."

"It feels weird if I don't."

Conscious of Bloo's gaze, I chanced another glance at the girl of my dreams. She was radiant, dazzling, a brilliant star in a universe of dark, cold, planets that were devoid of sentient life or even suitable atmospheres. (She was with her friends, so I guess they were the planets or something.)

"You want to go and talk to her," said Bloo, "but you're too shy. You're worried you'll embarrass yourself."

"It's not that. I just... don't feel like it. It's not that big a deal."

"If it's not that big a deal, then you shouldn't have a big problem with going and talking to her."

"I don't."

"Then go over."

"What would I even say?"

"Make up a reasonable excuse to talk to her and just go from there. Ask her if she wants to study for the test on Wednesday."

"But I already studied."

"You're retarded. Do you know that?"

Fearing the worst, I found myself by her table, trying to act natural, and also trying to act like I had some idea what "natural" meant.

"Hey, did you study for that history test on Wednesday?" asked my mouth.

"No. I probably should though," she replied.

"You want to study with me next free period?" I tried to ignore Bloo's murmurs of "good, good" from behind me.

"Yeah, sure. Do you have one at two?"

"Yeah." _Oh fuck,_ I thought. _There's way too many people looking at me._

"Alright, so I'll see you then." I escaped without incident.

"See?" said Bloo as I sat back down at my table. "Was that _so _hard? I mean, I can see how you thought you might screw up, since you're all socially awkward and shy, but you barely had to do anything."

…

To my dismay, Bloo followed me to our study session (in an empty classroom) and sat on the girl's shoulder. I wanted to tell him to leave, but it was too late—the girl was already there. _"The girl?" _I thought. _I can't call her that, even in my head._

"By the way, what's your name?"

"Frankie. You're Mac, right?"

"Yeah."

As I got out my notebook, I noticed her eyes fall on my drawings. I started to flip to a page that didn't have any before I realized they were on every page, so I settled on one that didn't have any notes to Bloo.

"Nice dragon," she said.

"It's a wizard dragon."

"Why did you say that?" asked Bloo. "That's a stupid thing to say." I bit my lip.

We made a few flashcards and steadily started ingesting kernels of information into our short-term memories.

"Alright," said Frankie, "what was the main indigenous civilization in what is now Colombia?"

"The Muisca," said Bloo. I repeated his answer (which was right) and looked at one of my cards. "What was the Treaty of Tordesillas?"

"That reminds me," said Bloo, "we should get some tortillas later."

"It was signed in 1494," said Frankie, "and… it divided land between Portugal and Spain, land which was…" Bloo began making faces. "…I forget where it was, but it was discovered by Christopher Columbus."

"Only," added Bloo, "we're not supposed to say he 'discovered' anything because that's racist or something."

"Alright, well, that was mostly right but it says the land was halfway between the Cape Verde Islands and the Cipangu and Antilia islands."

"Oh, okay. Norte Chico?"

"It existed between the 30th and 18th centuries BC; had no art but massive architecture; and used textile technology. Tiwanaku?"

"An archaeological site in western Bolivia. Its people had no written language. Meztizo?"

And so it went. We bounced back and forth, remembering a little more each time we returned to the same card.

"Guyana?"

"Simón Bolívar?"

"Empire of Brazil?"

"It was established in the 19th century and ruled by Emperors Dom Pedro the First and Second. It…"

I stopped. Frankie was looking at me strangely. I struggled to think of what I had said that was wrong when I noticed Bloo rolling his eyes. Frankie hadn't read the card aloud; _he _had.

"How did you see what card I picked from there?" she asked slowly?

I shrugged. "Lucky guess?"

We memorized the rest of the cards without incident, though Bloo tried twice (unsuccessfully) to get me to name bodily fluids rather than pre-Columbian civilizations. As the free period neared its end, Bloo started pointing at the clock.

"Alright," said Frankie, "I think we're about out of time."

"Ask her to hang out after school!"

"Yeah, we are."

"You didn't ask her! Ask her now!" He was now raising his hands to his mouth and stage whispering.

"Okay, so I'll see you around?"

"Yep. See you."

"Ask her!" There she went, out the door. "You… are… an idiot!"

…

Later, as I was driving home, Bloo clambered down below his seat to sulk. "You remember how I said you were shy and socially awkward? Yeah, that's something we need to work on."

I swallowed. I wasn't sure what to say.


	8. Chapter 8: Grave

Chapter 8: Grave

I make the drive to the campground near my old neighborhood. I don't know what I expect to find, but after what happened last week, I have to at least look. Even where the search for meaning does not uncover meaning, it can produce it artificially, which is effectively the same thing.

I try to convince myself that it's all over now, that Bloo is gone for good. This is a search for resolution and understanding, not a safeguard against my doom. I'm cleaning up, tying up loose ends. The climax is finished and this is the relaxing, tension-free aftermath. That doesn't stop me from speeding.

Everything in the grassy field is bright and clear like I remember it; the gravel roads and park benches carry emotional freight. The treetops are even, following a smooth curve around the perimeter of the space they enclose. There are people everywhere, interlopers in my personal journey into the past. I pass through them, invisible, dissolving into the vast, swirling pool of people minding their own business, setting up towels to sit on, throwing Frisbees, setting up tents. Why is this place so crowded? Don't I have the right to my own unblemished nostalgia?

I reach the trail. My hands shake as I walk down it, so I hide them in my pockets. _It wasn't far,_ I think, my heart pounding. _If I didn't get bored or scared when I was six, it could hardly have been less than a few hundred yards._

I emerge placed, concluded, resolved. I walk past the tombstones, lightly brushing my fingertips across them for reasons I can't explain. Names and dates, words and numbers, the total absence of thoughts or feelings. Ritual, reconciliation, resolution. To say that we mourn is to mourn; to say that everything is in its place is to make it so. Ashes to sense, dust to meaning. Flowers of hope blooming from the corpse of a dead god. As Tolstoy would have it, this was the place where people gathered to say "I'm sorry" and to think "I'm glad it wasn't me." Are the dead not as subjugated, oppressed, and marginalized a people as immigrants to this country, or even child laborers in the third world? We never really respect them. We use them to absolve our guilt over what we did to them in life. Gathering and saying that we remember the dead is the most convenient way to forget them. It's just one of those things. Fold your laundry, brush your teeth, bury your dead.

I remind myself that this is all philosophical, that it doesn't describe at all the relationship I have with my dead parents. At this point, I don't ever want to stop feeling guilty. I deserve the guilt. I just want to know the truth. Maybe I've already found out all there is to know.

Their shared grave appears suddenly at my side, prompting a double-take. I freeze, letting the wind carry on its way past me as I read their names to myself again and again. Should I have brought flowers? Of course not. Flowers are Hallmark cards for dead people.

I stand there, waiting for something to happen, for some sudden memory to flash back, telling me what I need to do. It would be nice if my parents could speak to me from beyond the grave, tell me what their last wishes were, lead me to the life-altering revelation that death is not the end.

Instead, the tombstone sits there, cold and static. I brush a spider off my sleeve and start making my way back towards the car. Bloo is gone. I'm perfectly safe. I run a red light on the way home.


	9. Chapter 9: Cars

Chapter 9: Cars

"I can't believe you, Mac. At some point you're going to have to ask this girl out, you realize that? How are you going to do that if you don't even talk to her?"

I tried to concentrate on the test. The questions were easy enough, but Bloo was making things a lot more difficult by talking nonstop.

"You know who I haven't seen around at all? Brian. You should call him, he was cool. Did he leave the school or something?"

To my surprise, I managed to finish the test before anyone else. I got about ten yards past the door before realizing I had nowhere to go. I leaned against the wall, trying hard not to looking like I was trying hard to look a certain way.

I was started to see Frankie emerge from the door, heading in my direction. What did she want?

"See?" said Bloo. "She's sick of waiting for you to ask her to hang out after school, so now she has to ask you. You're a dick." I didn't let my facial muscles betray my annoyance.

"Hey," said Frankie, "I was wondering if maybe you'd wanna hang out after school?"

"Sure."

"Alright, cool." She smiled and went on her way. I watched in amazement as she disappeared around the corner.

"How did you know?" I whispered to Bloo.

"Because I pay attention to everything you miss. She wants you _bad,_ Mac."

"I'm not so sure."

"She wants you to get all up in her titties, for real."

"Shut up." I was starting to get the feeling Bloo was planning to make my life very, very awkward sometime in the near future.

…

Somehow, Frankie and I ended up at the trail entrance near our school. "I think I've been down there," she said. "It goes in really deep."

"There's a bunch of weird stuff in there," I said, "like broken-down cars hundreds of feet from any roads."

"Really? I would think you couldn't get them past the trees."

"It's a mystery."

We stared into the forest, the trees swaying, beckoning us to enter. "You know what?" said Frankie. "We should go in there this weekend and you can show me where all that stuff is."

"It's really not that interesting." Bloo elbowed me. "I mean, some of it is. We should go."

We talked for a while longer before she said she had to go. As I bid her goodbye and went on my way, I wondered if there was some way to separate myself from Bloo.

…

That night I dreamt I was deep inside a cavern, crawling like a parasite under the flesh of the world. The walls were so damp that as I slid my hands along them to feel my way forward, a strange feeling came over my fingertips—not wet, but _watery_, as though my natural resistance to homeostasis had somehow gone offline. I was _dissolving_, being digested; the slime around me was eroding the barrier between myself and the rest of the universe. Was this dying? It didn't feel like it. I felt like I was growing, which was even more terrifying. What would it be, to be completely removed from the self as we never are in life? Swaths of my melted skin stuck to the cavern walls, slithering away like worms, carrying my still-active nerve endings into tiny crevices in the rocks. I could feel the rock; I _was_ the rock; everything was everything.

_Drip. Drip._ Something was dripping from the ceiling, something not of myself. I held my breath in terror.

Eyes dripped down, a face dripped down. A smile that shouldn't be, the eldritch horror of a cruel universe that hears us crying out for guardian angels and teaches us to be careful what we wish for. I frowned so hard that my mouth melts off, swallowing the floor of the cavern just as the floor swallowed my mouth. I shook my head furiously, urging the abomination to be gone from my dream, gone from the universe. Blue, luminescent moths flitted about, in and out of the ceiling, dripping their essence into my wide eyes as they whispered soft hymns of a paradise that has never been and will never be.

The mouth opened wider, sucking away the air as I tried to breathe it and my thoughts as I tried to think them. I heard an impossibly strange, backwards, inhaling scream that rang through my every nerve. Somehow, I understood it as an expression of anguish from the loneliest being in the universe, the clarion call of greed incarnate. In moments, my thoughts could no longer be called thoughts and I could no longer be called me. A single question shot out into the darkness like a bullet, singing sharp and clear:

_What do you want from me?_

…

I woke up. Instinctively, I sat up and looked around my room. There, as I'd expected, was Bloo, sleeping (or pretending to sleep) in his normal spot. I stared at the ceiling, thinking that I'd never fall asleep right up until I did.

…

By the time the weekend came, I had given up hope of getting Bloo out of the way. When I got to school, I found Frankie waiting by the trail entrance with a backpack.

"Why'd you bring your school stuff?" I asked as we embarked.

"Actually, I just have water and trail mix in here." I wondered why I never brought that kind of stuff.

As we passed through a small clearing, I explained our possible destinations: "So there's this old, broken-down shed that no one seems to be using, near this abandoned construction site by the road; a giant area that's been clear-cut with just one tree standing in the middle, with a tree fort partway up; this weird scarecrow thing that my friends and I made years and years ago…"

"Where are the car crashes?"

"Oh, those are pretty close. We just take a right up ahead."

I listened to her eat a mouthful of trail nuts as she walked behind me. "Do you want some of this?" she asked.

"No thanks, I'm good." I stopped walking as I saw a sudden flash of motion up ahead. I squinted and realized Bloo had emerged from the bushes and was waving at me.

"What's wrong?" asked Frankie.

"Nothing, I just… thought I saw something."

"There are bears in here, right?" She didn't sound scared, but she lagged behind as I resumed walking.

I looked at her over my shoulder. "I've never seen any."

"Yeah, but they live in this area, so they must be in here somewhere, right?"

"They live in the woods. Just not _these_ woods."

Glancing from side to side in hesitation, she caught up with me. "Woods are woods, though, aren't they? Why would a bear care if it was living in these woods or any other woods?"

I shrugged. She had me there.

Bears or no bears, she seemed to relax as time wore on. To my surprise, Bloo remained completely silent.

"This seems like it's be a good place to come out and draw."

"Not really. There's nowhere to sit down."

We arrived at our destination. There, down in a ravine, sat three rusting cars in a tight huddle, facing each other, as though plotting their escape. The forest had seeped into them over the years, covering them with pinecones and pine needles, dirt and rot, rendering them unfit to even sit in. Something about them seemed distinctly unsanitary, as though mixing nature with machinery in this way was like mixing orange juice with milk.

"Whoa. What's with that one over there? How did it get like that?" I looked to where Frankie was pointing and saw the fourth car, ostracized from the rest, watching them from afar. Through its hood grew a mighty tree, rising up a hundred feet or more, just like any other in these woods. The front and sides of the car were unbroken.

"The tree must have grown up through the bottom," I said. "It's the only way."

Frankie started clambering down into the ravine. Couldn't she see how gross the cars were? I held back as she inspected them close up, peering through the smashed windows from various angles. As she climbed back up, she started to slip on the unstable slope, producing a small cascade of something between dust and dirt as she scrambled to grab onto roots poking out of the ground

"Help her up," suggested Bloo. I walked forward, reached out my hand so she could grab it, and pulled her back onto the trail. "Keep holding her hand," hissed Bloo. I let go.

"I like to think there's a story here," I said. "I just don't know what it is."

"Maybe the cars didn't crash and they were just left here. I mean, they're not touching each other."

"Yeah, that makes sense… and whoever owned them is probably dead by now, judging by the size of that tree."

"He treasured them. He refused to let them go. They were like his children."

"He loved them more than his own family. He was a cruel man, with a short beard and a cane that he used to whack his wife and children."

"He was obsessed with the idea of owning things. He became furious when so much as a mailman set foot on his property."

"He had a collection of antiques that he would count every day, just to make sure they were all there."

"As he lay on his deathbed, looking into the faces of his loved ones as they tried to look sad, what killed him wasn't the pneumonia, but the horrific shock of realizing how empty his life had been."

I smiled at her. This was a moment of sharing. It's nice to make up stories. It's nice to pretend that the things that happen to us mean something.

Bloo circled around, looking up at me from Frankie's side. "Now is a good time to ask her a slightly personal question," he said. "Something vaguely artistic-sounding that someone would ask in a sappy movie. It doesn't matter if it's cheesy; she'll appreciate the thought."

"Do you ever feel like we're just living out someone else's dream?" she asked me.

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what if this is part of someone else's story? Descartes said 'I think; therefore, I am.' But what if someone else is doing the thinking? What if we're just complex, self-contained thoughts?"

"You mean imaginary." I looked at Bloo. His expression was inscrutable.

Frankie went on: "It's so strange to think that it could even be possible. Someone, somewhere would have to dream up the whole world. But as long as they thought all the thoughts we think and felt all the feelings we feel, it could happen."

"I try not to think about that." It wasn't until too late that I'd realized what I'd said. Would she suspect this was a possibility I often dwelled on, something that secretly terrified me to no end?

"Well, it _does_ seem pretty unlikely. I just thought it was interesting to think about." I breathed a silent sigh of relief.

On the way home I learned that she volunteered at a soup kitchen; that she thought Drake's equation was reason enough to assume there _must_ be someone else out there, and that therefore no one should ever feel alone; that I should draw her sometime. Bloo was waiting for us just outside the trail we'd entered on. I stopped, staying just inside the woods as Frankie brushed based him. He smiled at me and silently mouthed "you're welcome."


	10. Chapter 10: Shirt

Chapter 10: Shirt

"Are you sure we're not lost?"

"Trust me. Everything is just like on the map."

"Are you sure you drew the map right?"

"Yes, because everything is just like it. It's just a long walk, that's all."

Brian and Tristan still seemed skeptical, but they'd see soon enough that I knew where we were going. A thick fog crept through the area, washing between the trees and obscuring everything further than twenty feet from us.

Brian moved up next to me. "Your uncle was gonna leave the door unlocked, right?"

"Yeah." I got the impression they weren't worried about what would happen when we got back so much as while we were here. The fog gave the impression that anything might be hiding behind it.

Finally, I recognized a curve in the trail that meant we were very close. I turned to my friends, put a finger to my lips, and whispered "Be careful. I think maybe some homeless guy lives here."

Brian crouched down, ready to slink silently into the clearing. Tristan, however, stayed rooted where he was.

"What if he has a gun or something?"

"He doesn't. How could he afford one if he's homeless?"

"He's not homeless if he lives in there."

He had a point. Nevertheless, I took the lead and stepped out, squinting at the two-story shed through the mist. It looked like it was about to fall apart. I turned and waved the others to follow.

I wondered if anyone was inside. I looked around on the ground and picked up a good-sized rock, despite the others' frantic, silent protestations. "Move back onto the trail," I told them. Then, I backed up towards the bushes, threw the rock at the door as hard as I could, whipped around and ducked out of sight. I tumbled forward into the ferns, curling into a ball and clenching every muscle in my body as I waited for the rustling to stop.

I breathed in the scent of the forest floor for a full minute in silence. When it seemed as though no response was forthcoming, I slowly crept back out of the bushes.

"I think it's okay," I told the others, loudly enough to let them know I wasn't worried about us being caught. Taking a deep breath and willing my still-pounding heart to relax, I strode towards the door, grabbed the handle, and opened it, all without thinking.

I was relieved to find that the inside was very dark—that meant no one was home after all. Strangely enough, the inside was somewhat nicer than the outside. There was a desk with sheets of yellowed, blank paper sitting on a table next to an old-fashioned ballpoint pen, with a radially asymmetrical tip. There were splintered stairs leading up, and a machete, a shovel, shears, and other tools scattered around on the dusty floor.

"What's this place even for?" asked Tristan as he followed me in. "It's in the middle of nowhere. What's the point?"

I shrugged and walked up the stairs, lifting the trapdoor, careful for hidden spiders. I peeked up into a room that was bare except for a couple windows and a wooden box with a hinged lid. _Treasure chest,_ I thought.

I waited for my friends before lifting up the lid. Inside lay a wrinkled, tattered, light blue t-shirt, wedged against the far corner. I lifted it out, shook it off, and turned it around. It was sized for a child and appeared to be fairly new.

"I have a really bad feeling about this," said Brian.

I frowned. "Me too." I set the shirt back inside the box, careful to put it in roughly the same position I had found it. We all crept out of the shed, bound together in our guilt and fear.

The shed watched us and judged us as we went back onto the trail, out into the fog.

"Whose do you think that was?" asked Tristan.

"Maybe it belonged to some kid he kidnapped," said Brian.

I looked from side to side, sure that some maniac was waiting for us, ready to jump out from the bushes and slit our throats. I quickened my pace.

Minutes passed. I realized I was afraid of nothing—if we were going to be attacked, it would have been back in the shed. "Should we tell someone?" I asked.

"What would we say?" asked Tristan. "'There was this weird shed in the woods with a kid's shirt in a box.' What if the kid just left it there? It's not like the police are going to investigate something like this. There's no evidence."

"But why would someone just take off his shirt and leave it there?"

"I don't know. Why does anyone do anything?"

…

Eventually, we made it out of the woods and back to the safety of my house, where we dined like kings and played video games to celebrate the fact that we were still alive. It wasn't long before we all forgot about the box and its mysteries, lost in the camaraderie of a lazy day.

…

That night, I lay awake wondering if the shirt was intended for me.


	11. Chapter 11: Gun

Chapter 11: Gun

"Explain to me why we're doing this, Bloo."

He was leading me through the forest, down a trail I hadn't seen for years. We passed through a small ravine, alongside a shallow, pebbled stream, into the realm of my memories.

"You need more practice at playing pretend," he explained, wading downstream. "If you want to get anywhere with Frankie, you'll need to come out of your shell."

"Wouldn't playing pretend just be a way of withdrawing into myself?"

"I've explained this. You're withdrawn because you worry about how the rest of the world will perceive you. Once you stop caring so much, it'll be easier for you to express yourself. When people say 'be yourself', what they mean is 'stop caring'."

"I'm still not sold on any of this."

"You will be when you see the results."

We swung around a large earthen mound upon which a dense cluster of trees was crowded, seemingly jostling in competition for the soil and its nutrients, their roots grappling with one another as they poked out of the ground at awkward angles. We shuffled down a steep incline into our destination: an obstacle course built from old tires, wooden poles, ramps, and balance beams, winding around in a loop.

"Let's start where we left off," said Bloo. "Imagine: some kid has written "draw all the memes" on the whiteboard, drawn them, asked if 'you mad' and then run off. Your mission is to chase him down and beat the shit out of him. Go."

I started off down the obstacle course gradually, forcing myself to run while visualizing the scenario. The kid was scrawny with a lopsided grin and a T-shirt bearing the image of a trollface. Suddenly, I felt a strange force compelling me forward, a series of twinges and shivers running through my body, urging me to run faster. It was as though I was channeling my predatory evolutionary ancestors, serving as a modern avatar for a tribal hunter sprinting after his prey. Icy adrenaline surged through my veins; my blood felt like lightning. My footsteps were the drumbeats of hunting parties charging across the plains and my breath was the music of war and death, played by instruments carved from wood and painted with blood.

"You got him!" shouted Bloo. "Run him down! Kick his ass!"

I lunged. I tumbled into the dirt, snarling and rolling around like an animal. I saw the blood spill as my spear punctured the meme-spouting kid's back, felt my teeth sink into his neck, tasted sweet victory and heard his pained cries of 'Don't taze me, bro!' My people would eat well tonight.

Slowly, I regained my senses. My shirt was covered in dirt and I tasted blood. Alarmed, I felt around the inside of my mouth with my tongue and discovered that I had bitten my lip. I rose to my feet, stumbling, to see Bloo nodding from atop a fallen log.

"Even better than last time," he observed. "Are you enjoying the freedom yet? Do you realize how much more _powerful_ and self-actualized you become when you do this?"

"I don't think that's how self-actualization works."

"Sure it is. Anyway, try to get yourself into that state again. Let's go for a longer session this time."

"I'm not sure I want to."

"Don't lie. I saw how much you were enjoying it."

I studied his face carefully—the simple smile, those black eyes. He seemed impatient, greedy, and proud of what he had accomplished through me. Even so, I knew he was right: I had enjoyed every second of playing pretend, just like before. I really did feel freer and more alive.

"Come on," urged Bloo, sensing my hesitation. "Just _go_ for it."

My knees shook. I dropped down, my ragged breathing and trembling hands letting me know I was once again entering the zone. I picked up the nearest rock and began smashing it against the ground, grunting as I imagined blood and brains leaking from the skull of my victim. I heard Bloo sigh contentedly.

The trip back seemed to take no time at all. Time and space were mine. I was master of my domain; the forest was my construct, my simulacrum of wilderness which I created by moving through it. I was a solipsistic performance artist, a visionary who could create merely by envisioning. For the first time in my life, I truly felt like I was in control.

…

Before long, I had my next opportunity to meet up with Frankie outside of school. To my dismay, Bloo once again insisted on accompanying us. For some reason, she wanted to see the shed, so we set off in that direction.

"So you've been pretty much everywhere in these woods, right?"

I shrugged. "As far as I know. It's possible there are places I've missed, and things change over time, but nowadays I never really go in expecting to discover anything new."

We crossed a bridge over a river running from a modestly-sized waterfall. Bloo appeared at my side. "Say something deep," he offered.

"Sometimes I wonder if time is just an illusion," said Frankie.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's all supposed to be relative, right? You can get on a spaceship going almost the speed of light and travel into the future or whatever. There are those particles—tachyons, I think—that can go back in time. As human beings, we need a sense of time, just the same as a sense of smell or touch, because it's not something our brains can just do on our own."

"So it's another way of filtering reality, like turning the wavelengths of light into colors."

"Right, or turning sound waves into sounds we can understand. So what if time is just our interpretation of relationships between things, and it's just another type of wave? I mean, I'm not a scientist, so maybe this is all wrong."

"I'm not either."

"Still, I feel like time is something our brains just make up so that we can make our way through the world. Our sense of time can't be perfect, right?"

"Plenty of animals have better vision than us, so better senses of time would make sense too."

"Whatever's really going on, we must be completely out of synch with it. Maybe what we perceive as the past is actually the future. Maybe our entire lives have already played out, and this is all just in retrospect."

"I like to think science can tell us these things someday. It seems like it's moving in that general direction."

"We'll just have to wait and see."

Time passed, or appeared to pass, and we arrived at the shed. "What an awesome date," said Bloo. He began to croon in a crude imitation of Frankie: "Oh, Mac, all that broken glass is so _romantic!_ Is that a used condom lying on the ground over there? For _me?_ Gosh, Mac, you _sure_ know how to treat a lady!"

I kicked him. Then, as I noticed Frankie's eyes on me, I kicked a beer can into the bushes, as if I'd been aiming for it the first time.

"What's it like inside?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I went in there with my friends when I was little, but I got so creeped out, I avoided it for years. Even when I stopped being scared of it, it still seemed kind of unsanitary, so I haven't been in since."

"It can't be that bad." She made for the door. I had to admit, Bloo had a point. Why _did_ Frankie want to come here of all places?

I followed her in. Everything was just as dusty, splintery and touchable as I'd remembered. There was a table covered in strange burn marks, atop which sat a pair of candles and a pile of magazines. _Not porn,_ I thought. Why was that the first thing I noticed about them?

As Frankie rifled through them, I made my way upstairs. A familiar but unexpected dread clenched my stomach as I beheld the wooden box, the monolith to a fear I had never identified, a kobold lurking in the shadows of my memory and my imagination. Knowing I had no choice, I lifted the lid.

A knot formed in my throat. Inside the box lay a shotgun, black and shiny. Who left it here? Was it for me? I glanced around furtively, wary of some strange trap. There was Bloo, looking up at me and waving from the clearing outside. I heard Frankie approaching behind me and immediately shut the lid, though I couldn't have said why.

"What's in it?" she asked, pointing.

"A gun," I replied, making an awkward shrugging gesture in an attempt to feign disinterest.

Her eyes widened. "Really? Let me see!"

I lifted the lid, carefully averting my gaze from the thing as she approached it and I stepped away. "Wow… so I guess a hunter left it here? Or what if it's some crazy guy who _lives _here?"

"Could be."

She stiffened. "If someone lives here, then they could be back any minute. We should probably leave."

"Good idea," I said, glad for an excuse to rush down the stairs and out the door.

…

"You still need to draw me," she stated suddenly while we were on our way back. Bloo waggled his eyebrows at me suggestively.

"I don't have any paper or a pencil with me," I said.

"Well, we can just go to your house, can't we?"

"Oh, Mac," moaned Bloo, rubbing his chest. "Let's go back to your place. Draw me like you draw your French girls. I'll model however you want."

Ignoring him was like holding my breath, but I managed it.

…

As we passed through the front door, Frankie looked around, studying the photos on the wall, the furniture, everything. Why was she so interested in boring things? Was she somehow noticing this wasn't the abode of one big happy family?

"Are your parents not home?" she asked.

"My uncle," I corrected softly. "And no, I don't think he is."

"Why do you live with your uncle?"

I spent a few seconds trying to think of a lie before I realized how absurd and impractical the notion was. "They passed away a long time ago."

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry! That's terrible!"

"It was a long time ago. Don't worry about it."

…

I found myself sitting opposite her with my sketchpad, Bloo at my side. She sat up straight, smiling, producing a sudden and powerful image of beauty that seemed to shine through her rather than from her, as if it were a bedazzling light cast from another dimension.

"Alright," she said. "Whenever you're ready."

Bloo elbowed me. "This won't do at all," he whispered. "Tell her to pose sexier." I looked down and started drawing. As I formed her face, I took a brief trip through uncanny valley until I stylized her eyes to make them more expressive. She did an excellent job of holding still as I set about adding shading, and before long, she was looking up at me from the paper with the same smile she wore in real life.

"Alright," I said, turning it around nervously. "Here you go."

"Oh, wow, it's great! I look so pretty! I mean, in the picture, not—you know."

I carefully separated the page from the binding. "You can keep it if you want."

"Sure. I'd like that."

…

Eventually, it was time for her to go, so I drove her home. She told me it had been fun, that she was looking forward to next time, that it was fun to imagine that the road was moving under us while the car stood still. Every hundred yards or so, I would see Bloo on the sidewalk, waving at me with both arms, as if he needed a lift in order to follow me.


	12. Chapter 12: Truck

Chapter 12: Truck

Sunday was the day I went to the docks. I wasn't sure why—it was a trip I surprised myself with, out of a compulsion to make myself remember what had happened ten years ago, as if I could ever forget.

The masts of the boats stood tall as I arrived, marking man's formidable presence at the very edge of his domain, the border separating civilization from the ocean and its laws. As I walked along the edge of the water, I resisted the urge to fling myself in. Bloo kept looking up at me, confused, but he didn't ask any questions.

A lump formed in my throat as I drew close to the place where it had all happened. The warehouse was there, dirty-looking, filled with stacks of tires and other car parts. The ramp was there, wooden and sturdy, serving some arcane purpose I'd never figured out and didn't care to know. The water was there, rising, falling, lapping at the metal supports below my feet. The truck was not there. Neither were my parents.

"What are we looking for?" asked Bloo, puncturing my reverie. "Don't tell me you're ready to play pretend in public?"

I shook my head. "I'm trying to remember how my parents died. Isn't it strange that I can't? That means I blocked something out."

"Not necessarily. Maybe you didn't actually see what killed them when it happened, and no one ever told you."

I slowly and purposefully strode up to the ramp, sensing that both it and myself were vibrating at the same high, unnatural frequency. We were emitting particles of poignancy, resuscitating a frozen homunculus of a young boy in the throes of trauma, trapped between time and space, a psychological projection of myself, by myself, onto myself, and through myself.

I reached out into the space above the ramp, my hand suddenly trembling as it remembered something my brain couldn't. My fingers curled in and out, rhythmically, like the wings of a butterfly. I fumbled at something, clasped at something, grasped at something. I knew my parents had drowned, but somehow I never understood what had stopped anyone from diving into the water to rescue them. I looked around and saw a ladder nearby, connecting the water to the dry boards on which I now stood. Had it been there ten years ago? If so, why hadn't they been able to reach it? How was the truck involved?

I stared into space for a long time, dimly aware that I made for an odd spectacle. I took deep breaths, pressing myself to remember. I had to know.

"You could probably just ask someone," said Bloo. "Ask your uncle, he'll probably know."

For some reason I couldn't have named, I instinctively wanted to reject the idea. Maybe it was because I didn't really want to know the truth, but instead wanted to make up my own truth, to plant retrospective evidence in my own head. I sought comfort regardless of closure. Doesn't everyone?

"I want to figure it out on my own," I said, though I had a feeling that Bloo suspected the truth. I kept looking and thinking for another minute, but it was no use—I couldn't see the whole picture. Something important was missing.

Defeated, I turned around and left, taking one last glance over my shoulder at that small, tucked-away section of the docks that represented the most pivotal change of my childhood, a catalyst of transformation and spiritual collapse. Something of myself had slipped away here, drifting off into the wind, spinning out into the ether.

I consoled myself that someday, I would come up with an answer. I would make up whatever story I needed, and I would believe it.


	13. Chapter 13: Freedom

Chapter 13: Freedom

Bloo has raised my suspicions before, but now I'm sure of it: there is something deeply wrong with him. I've been too accepting of the evidence of my senses up until this point, too results-oriented, too shallow in my self-examination. Without any context for his reappearance, I gave up too soon on trying to understand what he was or how he came to be in the first place. After what he did yesterday, however, I have no choice but to start asking questions.

As I lie in bed, staring a tiny spider slowly making its way from one corner of the wall to the other, I consider calling Frankie—she's still waiting for an explanation. How _could_ I explain, though? What will she think of me if I tell her about Bloo?

I'll figure out what to say to her later. For now I get up, allow a moment for my circulation to normalize, and set off towards the kitchen. As I pass through the doorway, I freeze at a sudden tingling sensation running down my spine. Something has disoriented me; something is missing. I turn around and look around the room at the faded posters on the walls; the unsorted pile of clothes; my closet, filled with a dense history of my life; the window, framing a glimpse of the world I wish I knew how to be a part of—

Bloo. By some strange transformation of reality, my mind, or both, my imaginary friend is nowhere in sight. I check in the closet for him, looking behind and under clothes, reaching above the shelf in search of his uncanny form. Where has he gone?

I move to the window. There's the street; there are the neighbor's houses, socioeconomically akin to mine; there is a streetlight; there is the little white dog that comes by every morning, sniffing around through everyone's backyards before leaving for parts unknown. Where is Bloo?

I creep through my house warily, on tiptoes, trying to peek around corners at heights he won't expect. My uncle is still asleep, as always, but the fridge seems to be staring at me, judging me. The tables and chairs sit quietly, passive-aggressive and resentful of my presence. The pictures on the wall look down on me with derision; I dare not even look at the mirror in the hallway. I don't want to hear what it has to say.

If Bloo isn't in the house, where is he? I always thought he was inextricably connected to me through some convolution of my psyche, yet here I am, alone and free. I cook eggs and eat them alone, in silence, unobserved and therefore nonexistent. It's nice, in a way, not to have to be, but to persist as the lingering sentiment of a consciousness that may have once been. I reach the last egg, glistening and imploring me to let it live. Am I dead? I shrug and finish eating.

Soon I find myself outside. The hedgerows are there with or without me. The faces of the houses can no longer express their derision; the eye-windows stare past me or through me, into infinity. I don't feel hungry. Obviously it's because I just ate, but I like to think it's a sign of some broader auspiciousness. Everything is just right.

I walk past orderly mailboxes, freshly-mown lawns, and driveways, letting the sun shine through me, rinsing away the accumulated tension of the past few weeks. I imagine I could walk halfway across the country if I felt like it, but I don't, so I turn around and head home.

What does a free spirit do? I draw. That seems about right. I draw a snail; a fat, greedy lizard; a werewolf; and Frankie sitting on a tree stump. (I recreate her from memory, though she's somewhat stylized.) I file each picture away into a box, like money into a safe—for I am slightly richer for my work.

The day is long and time is no object. I take photos of the sun and the scenery outside so I can remember how relaxed I felt; I do a hundred sit-ups over a very long period of time. (I think you can do them indefinitely as long as you keep taking short rests.) Wanderlust overtakes me and I go back outside, towards the forest. I glide down the trail like a steadily moving camera, picking up sights and sounds to be stored for some later purpose. The air smells lush and alive. I think of the bacteria wriggling in the soil, on my skin, and inside me. This fills me with a thrill of strange joy. Everything is light, everything is alive.

Where am I going? My subconscious knows, but I don't. The forest knows, but it won't tell me until I get there. I wave to a squirrel climbing a tree. The trail starts to look familiar and I sense that I'm arriving at my destination soon. There was a neighborhood near here, a place I'd been too many times. Up ahead was a stump, upon which stood something that caught my attention and made me stop.

It was Bloo. I heard a faint roaring sound deep in my ears.


	14. Chapter 14: Adventure

Chapter 14: Adventure

Today Bloo and I are playing in the park. I spin him on the merry-go-round and then he spins me. It's fun to grab onto the bars and lean back. I swing on the monkey bars, go down the slide, and dig a hole in the bark chips. Bloo says the best games aren't on the playground.

I look at my mom and see her talking to a lady with a purple shirt. I sneak away without her seeing and go out into the park. I follow Bloo down the trail and we go over to the road.

"It's not safe to cross," I say. "I could get hit by a car."

Bloo smiles. "Just look both ways. That's how you stay safe, remember?"

I look to the left and watch some cars go by. Then I look to the right and watch them go by the other way. "There," said Bloo. "Now it's safe to cross."

I walk out into the street and a car goes _screech_ and stops. I keep running to the other side and hear a car go _honk_ behind me. Now that I'm on the other side, Bloo and I can go on an adventure.

We crawl through the bushes and get dirt on ourselves. We run past lots of houses, laughing because it's weird not to know where we are or where my parents are. We can run and run and run and still not know where we are. We run across the gravel. _Crunch crunch._ We run through someone's lawn and hide behind a tree in their backyard. I want to get on the tire swing but I can't because I'm hiding.

Bloo peeks around the tree. "The coast is clear," he says. "Let's keep going!" We run to the next yard, but a man with a white shirt is there so we have to go back to the sidewalk.

"Which way now?" I ask. Bloo points and we go in that direction.

"I know a really fun place," he says. "Better than anywhere else we've been." I follow him to the side of an old dusty house, where he shows me a space that's big enough to crawl into. It's like a tunnel that goes underground.

"The best playground of all is right down there," says Bloo. "They have swings and trampolines and bouncy houses and all kinds of stuff."

I squint. The inside of the tunnel looks dark. I hear a scary echoing sound, like hissing, only it doesn't sound like a cat. "I don't know," I say.

"C'mon!" says Bloo. He starts trying to push me in but I don't want to go.

"I think there's a monster in there," I say. This isn't fun anymore.

"It's not a _monster,_ Mac. It's a machine that makes cotton candy." He keeps trying to push me in so I push him away and run away from the tunnel.

"I don't want to go in!" I yell. "It's dangerous."

Bloo looks really mad for a few seconds but then he smiles. "Okay, Mac. If you don't want to go in there we can just keep playing outside." We run through a sprinkler and pretty soon the adventure is fun again. We jump in a mud puddle and chase a black cat. It runs really fast so we can't catch it but it goes past a tree with a tree house in it so we climb up the ladder and go in.

"This is a great hideout," I say. "We can spy on people from here." We look out the window and after a long time a kid comes out the backdoor of the house with an older kid who is probably his brother. They play Frisbee but the older brother gets a phone call and goes back inside. The younger kid looks at us through the window so I duck, but he then he starts climbing up the ladder.

"Kick him down!" shouts Bloo.

"No! He'll get hurt."

"He's mad at us for being in his tree house! You have to kick him before he gets us!"

"He'll be _more_ mad if I kick him!"

"Who's up there?" asks the kid. He has blonde hair and glasses and a green shirt.

"Sorry," I say. "We were hiding."

He climbs all the way up and looks around. "What do you mean 'we?' Who else is here?"

"My friend Bloo is. I'm the only one that can see him."

"Oh, okay. So he's imaginary?"

"I guess. Anyway, sorry we went in your tree house."

"It's okay."

His brother came back outside, looking around for him. "Hey, Sam!" he called. "Where'd you go?"

"Up here!" he shouts, leaning out the window. I frown. I wanted to hide.

Sam's brother sees me and asks "Hey, what's your name?"

"I'm Mac and this is Bloo." He stares at us for a few seconds with his mouth open, not saying anything. Bloo ducks under the window and hides. Sam's brother walks up to the ladder and looks up into the tree house, scratching his head.

"Bloo is imaginary," says Sam.

"Oh. Alright." He keeps looking around the tree house for a while. Then, he says "Play nice and have fun, okay?"

We both say okay. He goes back inside.

"What do you want to play?" asks Sam.

I shrug. "What about hide and seek?"

"Okay."

Sam covers his eyes and starts counting while Bloo and I go down the ladder and run off to hide. I try to hide under a rolled-up hose, but there is a spider already hiding there. I look around and see Bloo crawl under Sam's deck. I run around the bushes looking for a good spot to crawl into. Suddenly, my mom's car drives up next to the sidewalk. My mom runs out and hugs me. She is crying and seems really sad and happy at the same time. I try to tell her that Sam, Bloo and I are in the middle of hide and seek but my dad tells me to get in the car. I yell out goodbye to Sam and then I climb into the car.

Soon Bloo appears in the seat next to me. "Wasn't this fun?" he asks. "We should go on another adventure tomorrow."

…

When I go to sleep that night, Bloo stands watch to make sure the monster from the tunnel doesn't come and get me. He's a good friend.


	15. Chapter 15: Kiss

Chapter 15: Kiss

I dreamt I was sinking through something thicker than air, yet thinner than water, through inscrutable darkness and into a morass of shimmering webbing that clung to me with a vice grip. I looked around, turning my head in all directions, twisting it in full circles. Everywhere it was too thick to move through, even if I weren't immobilized; everywhere I saw nothing but a massive network of spider webs extending in all directions. _Quantum entanglement._ That was the title of my dream. It was a stupid title and had nothing to do with the dream itself, as far as I could tell.

I felt a tremor from somewhere, a wave carrying me up and down, everything spinning and shifting around me. I know a spider is coming and I felt nothing but a strange excitement in knowing it would wrap me up, inject me with its venom, paralyze me, and eat me alive. I looked around in anticipation, ready to disappear. Instead of a spider, I saw two disembodied hands, moving in synchronization and weaving back and forth past one another as they rapidly approached. This wasn't supposed to happen. I started to struggle, twist and shake, but the web only seemed to cling to me tighter. A hand reached my ankle and I shuddered in disgust. As it crawled up my leg, up my chest, my eyes widened. It's _my _hand.

I tried to look at my wrists to confirm this, but the other hand grabbed my head from behind, holding it firmly in place. The other started rapping its fingers across my chin and my cheeks, ecstatically exploring my face, rubbing, caressing. I heard a sickly-sounding, off-key violin playing somewhere in the distance. The hand took great pleasure in my helplessness, my shivering terror. It began to slip its fingertips between my lips so I clenched my teeth. However, the hand behind me squeezed hard, digging its nails mercilessly into pressure points in my neck, forcing my mouth open. The front hand started shaking with glee as it slid one, two, four fingers between my lips, working them in and out as my jaw and tongue spasmed uncontrollably. I felt saliva slide frantically around my mouth as the hand pushed hard, forcing its way in, jamming itself down my throat, choking me. My eyes rolled up into my head and the hands rammed in towards my brain with full force, clapping together…

…

I awoke with a headache, drenched with sweat, and breathing in erratic gasps. I rub my eyes and grasp around in the darkness for something, though I'm not sure what. I move through my room slowly, tentatively, passing into the hallway while lightly tracing the walls with my fingertips. I wondered what I was looking for. As I filled up a glass of water and chugged it down, it came to me—I was extremely thirsty. Well, that was that, so I returned to bed. Bloo showed no sign of stirring as I passed him.

…

When morning proper arrived, I struggled to remember what was special about today. I was going to meet Frankie, but that wasn't special, was it? I shrugged it off and ate my cereal.

Bloo followed me as I paced around the house. I suspected he knew why I was pacing, and I wished he would tell me, because I sure didn't. I sat down with my sketchpad and a pencil, stared at the paper for twenty seconds, and then got up and started pacing again. I looked out the window, panicked because I had no idea what to look at, and went back to pacing, flustered and ashamed.

"There was a documentary on yesterday about little kids who tortured animals and grew up to be politicians. You should've seen it, it was great."

I looked at Bloo. He was reclining on the couch, arms behind his head, a warm, contented grin across his face. Did he always feel the opposite of how I felt? No, that didn't seem right. There had to be more complex rules for his behavior than that.

"It sounds kind of sensationalist," I said. "Why focus on something so clichéd, so dramatic?"

Bloo rolled his eyes. "Because that's how you make good television. I don't wanna watch one of those shows where the kid gets better in the end. All kids are little monsters. What's so special about a sociopathic kid who grows into a responsible adult?" He had me there.

I forced myself to sit down and read. My eyes passed over the same two paragraphs again and again over six times, but it didn't matter. Bloo whistled the theme song to a cartoon show I hadn't seen in years.

Time took its course, and soon I was on my way to meet Frankie. "You gotta hook up with her," Bloo told me from the backseat. "You haven't made a move yet. It's time."

"I'm not going to while you're there."

"What? Why do you care? Frankie doesn't, I can tell you that."

"Because she can't see you. Otherwise she would."

"If it bothers you that much, I'll just hide or something."

I bit my lip. Soon we arrived at Frankie's house. (The plan was to stay there for a change.) When she answered the door to let me in, Bloo slipped in ahead of me, disappearing around a corner.

"So," said Frankie as she led me down the hallway, "there's this series on TV about mentally disturbed kids and where they ended up."

"Sounds interesting," I said. "We should watch it."

"Growing up in a small, rural town in Kentucky, eight-year-old Matthew Peters was adored by his parents," announced a deep-voiced narrator with the usual intonations. The camera faded from a picture of a smooth-faced, smiling boy sporting a plaid cap to a panning shot of a farmhouse in the middle of a sunny field. The background music was a counterpoint of uneven ratios, with suspensions, retardations and pedal points serving to create a sense of tension through controlled, sporadic nonharmony. "No one could have guessed," the narrator went on, "what dark secrets lurked behind those innocent eyes." Suddenly the shot entered a reddish filter which lead into a zooming photo negative. The harmony of the music broke completely; the tense chords gave way to a sharp, grating arpeggio across notes from a few different keys, and the volume levels slid sharply from the piano to the high strings. _Maybe Bloo was right, _I thought. _Something this stunningly unoriginal is like a parody of itself, and thus art in its own right._

We learned how the catfights arranged by young Matthew correlated to the "class warfare" he tried to incite during his political career, how his bullying of a Latino child was formative of his current stance on immigration. It's amazing how agreeable someone's political opinions become when they're framed against dramatic reenactments of a child kicking animals.

"Those poor cats," mumbled Frankie. Despite her words of concern, her features conveyed a mild-half interest, an aesthetic appreciation for propaganda on a stylistic, technical level—or was I just assuming on faith that she was thinking the same thing I was? Regardless, I savored the sound of her sipping soda. I even declined her offer to get me some, just so I wouldn't be distracted from the sound.

Throughout the documentary, the narrator performed his work with an admirable absence of hesitation or shame. "Criminal psychologist Thomas Murr explains how seemingly sweet, harmless children can grow up to become ruthless politicians, thirsty for our freedoms."

From time to time, I would hear Bloo thumping around in the other rooms. I couldn't imagine what he might be up to, nor did I want to know. As the documentary approached its stunning twist ending, I became thirsty, so I got up to help myself to a glass of water. As I made my way to the sink, I noticed Bloo walking on the countertops, tiptoeing around a stack of plates.

"What are you doing?" I mouthed.

"What does it look like? I'm staying out of the way so you can make a move on Frankie. Don't tell me you still haven't."

I eyed him carefully as I took a deep sip of water, not blinking once. As I returned to the family room, I was dismayed to hear him following behind me.

To my surprise, Frankie was standing up. I followed her through her house, unsure where we were going.

"So, what do you want to do now?"

"I don't know," I replied after I'd waited too long to say something. We ended up in her room, sitting on her bed.

"She wants you bad," stage-whispered Bloo from the doorway, his arms in front of his mouth. "Be a man. Surprise her with a kiss."

"I always get this weird feeling I'm being watched," I said, hoping he would get the hint. Suddenly, I felt Frankie's hand slide onto mine. Just as I turned my head to ask her what was going on, she put her lips on mine. Part of me felt an intense thrill, but another part of me wished I could kiss Frankie without being stared at by a weird blue Pacman ghost.

I must have tensed or resisted without realizing it, because she pulled away, looking confused. I smiled weakly, trying to ignore the approving nod in my peripheral vision.

"I wasn't going to mention this before," said Frankie with a sly grin, "but I _kind of_ noticed you checking me out in class before now."

"Was I? I didn't know."

"It was pretty obvious."

"Sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?"

Bloo started banging his head against the wall. I resisted the urge to shush him.

…

Later, on my way home, I managed to slip into my car without letting Bloo in. I could see him chasing me in the rearview mirror the entire way. However, when I went inside and saw him sitting at the bottom of the stairs, he didn't seem upset.

"Nice, man," he said, hopping up and giving me a pat on the back. "I knew you could do it."

"It would have been easier without you watching."

"How was I supposed to know she'd make a move on her own? I thought she was waiting for you." I rolled my eyes and started up the stairs. "If it weren't for me," he went on, following me, "you wouldn't even have talked to her in the first place. You'd be all alone."

The sad thing is, I knew he was right.


	16. Chapter 16: Darkness

Chapter 16: Darkness

Every day that week, I would meet with Frankie after school. I learned about major events from her childhood; silly phases she'd gone through but taken dead seriously at the time; unconventional ideas she had for how we could all get along and share spaceship Earth. She learned about my convoluted theories about secret meanings behind movies and cartoons; the greatest vacations I'd ever been on; the crazy things my friends and I used to do; the steady, protracted death of my interest in politics since age fourteen. I secretly wondered my life had been unique enough for her. Meanwhile, kissing her with Bloo nearby never got any less uncomfortable, but I learned to hide my discomfort. What other option did I have?

…

On Wednesday, a dead, mangled cat showed up in my backyard, but it did little to dampen my spirits. I gave it a proper burial, thinking its owners would be better off not seeing it in such a state.

"And so we commemorate thy soul to the Earth," proclaimed Bloo, lifting his arms to the sky as I lifted the cat's corpse with a shovel and laid it down in the grave I'd dug. "Though we never knew you," he went on, "it is our sincerest wish that you rest in peace. Amen." As I piled the dirt into the hole, I pictured the cat coming to life and tunneling away.

…

It wasn't until early Friday morning that I felt something had gone decidedly wrong. My bed was moving, though I was too disoriented to classify the motion. Was it undulating? Swaying side to side? Falling? Vibrating? With a start, I realized that I had to be dreaming. As I sat up in anticipation of a wild, adventurous lucid dream, I felt an unpleasant sensation in my stomach, not unlike the feeling of falling, telling me that I would not drift through time and space, that I was still pinned to this Earth, conscious, feeble. I waved my hands through the air slowly and marveled as it shuddered and pulsed at my touch. The medium couldn't be air, but if it wasn't, what was I breathing?

I experimentally tensed my muscles, struggling out of my bed and into this new kind of space. My senses all bristled; I quivered like a startled animal as I tried to pin down exactly what was wrong. This was my room, there was no doubt—none of the objects themselves looked out of place. I wondered if the strange new quality in the air meant it was not air at all, but darkness. Darkness, as a tactile medium? Could I swim through this darkness, float through the shadows like a wraith? I tried to breaststroke and propel myself forwards, but only succeeded in falling flat on my face.

As I tried to push myself up, something snagged. I felt a jolt of panic as it dawned on me that my face was stuck to the floor. How would I breathe? I twisted and jerked from side to side, finally managing to flip myself over, gasping like a trout. The darkness felt cool and almost liquid as it slid down my throat. It tasted like grape drink.

Getting to my feet was a daunting ordeal, but after about thirty seconds of pushing against the wall at awkward angles and grabbing onto the top of my desk, I managed my way up. Walking turned out to be easier than I imagined—the darkness parted for me as air would, though I didn't dare walk faster than a snail's pace.

I slipped silently down the stairs, listening to the room breathe as I did so. _It's asleep,_ I thought instinctively. What was asleep? The house? The world? Me? It was as though I was listening to the snores of some massive beast echo through a deep cavern, carried to me from miles away by subterranean acoustics. Was I hearing something that had always been there, or had something new arrived?

I went outside. The sky was breathtaking: each star was a shining hole, a tunnel into eternity. The stars _went _somewhere. The wind whistled through the trees and played concert music too grand and powerful to fit into any hall created by man. My arms hung limply at my side as the acoustics of the planet sent vibrations through the darkness and into my soul. I heard the songs of some distant, unnamed and unknowable gods, harmonies too complex and too beautiful for a composer to write in a thousand lifetimes. I knew then with complete certainty that this couldn't be a dream. Dreams were more realistic than this.

It occurred to me that I should find the moon. After searching through the shimmering, rippling void of the night the sky for a minute or two, I spotted it: a brilliant, pulsing white orb, periodically shooting stringy wisps of light out into the universe as it shrank and grew. My heart ached as I realized that I desperately wanted to drink it.

I walked across the grass, feeling it shiver and giggle beneath my bare feet. I listened closely to the song of the Earth, the rich textures and infinitely deep layers. What did it mean? Was there a message for me, or was I merely the receptacle for this strange cosmic miracle? The breathing I'd heard before continued, but I now sensed a complex rhythm in it; a single, unbroken drum beat that might have gone on for eons, containing component vibrations lasting only minutes. The Earth was humming with contentment, I realized, and my heart quivered as I wondered why I had been chosen to stand here, at the center of everything. This was the ultimate privilege—the bounty of my senses at that very moment made me the richest person in the world.

In an instant, all the magic went away. The sky grew dark again, the moon and the stars became tiny specks of light once more, and everything became cold and disconnected. I fell to my knees as the invisible force holding me up vanished in a puff of wind, leaving my limbs feeling heavy and useless. Something near my chest started shaking and my face felt hot—and, with a shock, I realized there were tears in my eyes. Where had the light gone? Why show me the face of God only to hide it behind a veil, perhaps forever? I felt hurt, betrayed, as if by a lover.

Going back inside caused me physical pain. My breathing felt dangerously uneven and shallow; my heart seemed to have balled into an angry fist. I shook with sobs as I returned to my room, silently cursing the unfairness of it all.

…

Sunday was the day I decided to cover the mirror in my room with duct tape. As I reached the halfway point, I paused suddenly. How was I going to convince myself this wasn't a weird thing to do? It was a troublesome conundrum. In the end, I dismissed it as something I could deal with later on.


	17. Chapter 17: Heaven

Chapter 17: Heaven

I shiver and hunch through the rain, willing the drops to land anywhere other than my face. This was not my domain, nor was it anywhere close. It was strange how on these long country roads where the intersections were few and far between, it was still possible to get lost. I hated every ounce (gram? Milliliter?) of mud that I trudged through with every fiber of my being; I hated the cold that numbed my skin and whispered songs of death to my bones while stifling cruel laughter. The land had worn me down, dragged me away into a harsh place where human consciousness was a rarity, existing only under controlled circumstances for short periods of time. As never before, I now knew wilderness, and it terrified me.

Why weren't there any houses, or any cars? What kind of backwards part of the country was this? I'd come on this trip with my friends thinking it would be a fun new place to see and explore. Gary (who lived here) had even informed me that there were more interesting places in these woods and fields than we'd have time to see. I tried not to blame him for the fact that I was going to die.

How had we gotten separated? I couldn't remember and it didn't really matter at this point. Still, the question kept nagging until it came to me: we had split up to cover more ground while calling out to each other, but somewhere along the line, I stopped hearing my friends' voices. Lost amongst unfamiliar trees and marshes, I had pushed through dried brambles and pits of aggressively thick mud out into an unfamiliar road, where it had promptly started to rain.

My entire body felt sore and weak. _Just lie down for a little bit,_ said a seductive voice in my head. _Just a little break to catch your breath for a while._ The tone of my mental voice betrayed its true intentions: somewhere, deep down, I hungered for the sweet release of DMT, and end to the pain and struggle, death's loving embrace. _I could go home._ Why did I think that? What did it mean?

Whether to escape the bitter chill or out of sheer disorientation, I ended up in the woods. These were not my trees, not my ferns, not even my dirt. Was there even a single species in common between here and home? There had to rabbits or something, right? I touched every tree I passed, desperate to keep reminding myself that I was still alive and on the inside of a body, at least for the time being. My brain was sitting right there in my skull and it wasn't about to push the "eject" button—not yet.

I insist on not stopping for a second. Even as I stumble gently against one tree after another, I touch the bark, shift my weight, move sideways and ensure that the motion is constant. _No breaks,_ I decide. How lucky I was that it is human nature to want to live, and to not even have to think about it. Evolution was doing most of the work for me, dragging my feet forward in spite of the pain, tugging me along like an invisible rope.

Suddenly the motion stopped. I stood in a grove which had looked ugly and wet from the outside but hauntingly beautiful from the inside. The dull colors became bright; the cold became a strange, numb warmth; the pain began to melt away as I realized what I was seeing before me.

There, standing on the still surface of a perfectly round pond, stood my parents. They looked healthy, well-groomed and well-dressed, as though they'd felt the need to clean up after their grisly drowning. _I'm dead,_ I thought, though this didn't really bother me anymore. _I'm seeing a calming image designed to prevent horrible, agonizing terror in my final moments. _I felt a floating sensation and heard the songs of angels—not clichéd angels singing along to harps, but inhuman creatures with voices that produced reverberations throughout the entire auditory spectrum. My death was set to a symphony performed by what might as well have been space aliens.

"We don't blame you, Mac," said my father. His voice sounded perfectly clear, as though he were right there in front of me, or like he was using a really good cell phone. Was this how he was supposed to sound? I decided it had to be.

I began taking steps forward. To my shock, my feet felt real. What was this? What did it all mean? I felt mud slosh across my shoes as acutely as if I were barefoot.

As I drew closer, my mother shook her head. "It's not your time yet, Mac." I felt dizzy. Why couldn't I go? _I'm supposed to be dying,_ I thought. _What is this bullshit?_ She pointed to my right. I looked, but saw only trees, still soaked with rain.

"We'll meet again." Her smile was so sweet that it could only have appeared on the face of a dead person. Suddenly I fell, the ground rushing up with a cruel roar as my body regained its dead weight and my hands and knees thudded hard against the mud. Sound returned and I became aware of just how wet my hair and face were. Cold was back, pain was back, and I was shaking like mad.

As I slowly lifted my head, my parents were gone, just as I expected. Grabbing a sturdy branch on the nearest tree, I pulled myself up, veering towards the direction my mother had pointed.

For several minutes, I was sure I was back on track towards dying. What would happen when I did? Would I get a second message from the beyond, saying "no, you were supposed to turn left after the third nettle patch, now you've gone too far"? Would it turn out that I was _meant_ to die here? At this point I was willing to accept whatever was thrown at me. I didn't care.

At least, I thought I didn't. When I heard a human voice I froze, determined to be sure it was real. I heard my name a second time and immediately let out a hoarse, wordless cry, stumbling forward, thrashing and jerking through the brush, alternating between ragged breaths, heavy grunting, and more shouts. Finally there was light as I burst through into open space, tumbling down a short grassy slope. I struggled to my feet, scrabbling for leverage as I sat up and looked around. There was the road, and there was a car. Human bodies came out, surrounded me, helped me up, and moved me away from the pain. There were words all around—something about hypothermia—and wide eyes pointed at me like handguns. I couldn't believe how beautiful the sky looked.

There was a towel around me, a barrage of questions that slid off me like rainwater. I wanted to keep moving my muscles to warm them up, but that had to wait until after I was done catching my breath, which seemed to take something like ten minutes. Somewhere during that time, I think I told them I was okay, but I can't imagine that was useful information for them. What do you do with "okay"? It's not like they were going to shrug and leave me be.

As they helped me into Gary's house, my eyes began darting around, greedily looking for someplace to lie down. I found myself being ministered to on a couch, and, after listening to a short argument about what you're supposed to do when someone is suffering from hypothermia, I somehow ended up in a bathtub. I had to assume I was recovering well, because no one else was in the room with me, and it seemed as though I'd drawn the bath myself. I lay there for a long time as my limbs twitched and jerked back into a state of functionality.

It occurred to me that everyone was probably waiting for me to complete the return from my spirit journey into the world of the living, so I got out, dried myself off, got dressed, and stepped out. All the while, I marveled at how well my body seemed to be working. I had touched down on solid ground.

I ended up sitting in a circle with my friends by the fireplace. As it turned out, they had recongregated without me shortly after we'd gotten separated and started following a creek. From there, they'd wandered into a thick patch of mud and started sinking. I watched awe as Gary smiled and laughed while describing how close he had come to dying. He gesticulated wildly; he looked around at the others, urging them to reaffirm what he'd said. They were all laughing because they were alive, laughing in schadenfreude at themselves in some alternate universe where they'd all died horribly. Here we were, sipping hot cocoa and making merry over the fact that we weren't corpses.

Isn't that what Heaven is? It must be. It's not a place to embrace our reunited loved ones and weep in overwhelming joy for eternity; not freedom from effort and strife; not a return to the arms of a kind and loving God. It is a realm of fearlessness from which we can look back at how afraid we were and laugh, where everyone we have ever wronged tells us it's now water under the bridge, where even the Jews who died in the Holocaust may sip iced tea and reminisce with their Nazi killers without resentment or judgment. After all, what is death if eternal life follows? Heaven is where everything we did in our lives becomes relatively meaningless, allowing us to find meaning in laughing at it all, in assuming an ironic appreciation for the subtle aesthetic beauty our suicides, our murders, our wars. It is the indulgence of attending your own funeral; the liberation of leaving your petty, decaying body behind. Heaven is the lukewarm compromise of deciding that the universe and the human mind were only ever just friends, and that the desperate, bittersweet, romantic search for meaning in life was just a silly childhood crush which we have fully grown out of. No jealousy, no competition, no self-pity. Heaven is the only place where we may finally become sane. What a shame we can't actually go there.


	18. Chapter 18: Bathtub

Chapter 18: Bathtub

I sit here twiddling my thumbs as he looks out the window, drawing and trying to look all deep. Jesus, why does this guy have to be so depressed all the time? I mean, besides the fact that his parents are dead—but whose fault is that?

It's sort of weird that he already seems to have given up on trying to figure out what I am. It's a relief, but on the other hand, I sort of wish _I _knew who I was.

I can't stand all this sitting and thinking. It's time to _do _something. "Hey, buddy!" I say, hopping up on the table. "How about another pretend adventure?"

He raises an eyebrow at me. I can already tell he's going to be a bitch about this. "Why do you keep wanting to go on those, anyway?"

"Because it's _fun! _Why else?"

He sighs. He _always_ sighs. I look at his drawing and it's some kind of big cat with stripes like a zebra. To my surprise, though, he gets up. I guess he's secretly been waiting for me to ask all along.

"Alright. Where are we going today?"

I make a point to rub my chin thoughtfully even though I've already decided. "Hmm… maybe the bathtub?"

He blinks in confusion. "I'd forgotten about it. It's not even near the trails, is it?"

I shake my head. "You haven't been there in about seven years, right? I wonder if it's still there."

"Only one way to find out." As he gets ready to go, I marvel at his agreeability. I guess I just have that effect on him.

…

What is this weather? The entire sky is white, but so much light still gets through. I think there's a name for that. I skip ahead of him as he walks down the trail. How can he be so slow with such long legs? I bounce from rock to rock. Rocks are the best to jump off of, because they don't crumble like dirt when you push off them. I see a squirrel and chase it because hell, why not? Unfortunately, it runs away.

I return to Mac's side. "So, have you and Frankie started dating yet?"

"You know we haven't."

I shrugged. "You might have. Sometimes I disappear for a while."

"You don't disappear. You're always there."

This is the old part of the woods that we never go to anymore—and, judging by the blackberry bushes leaning inconsiderately into the trail, neither does anyone else. A lot of light gets in, and the trees are short, thin and straight, like the ones you see in a horror movie. I guess the idea is that you can see the monster coming from far away, but it's hard to run while avoiding all the trees.

"You keep meeting up with Frankie," I say as we crest a steep slope, grabbing onto ferns for balance and sending their spores adrift. "If you don't make a move, she's going to think you're not interested."

"I guess I will, then."

"You'd better." I take a moment to picture her. "She's got an amazing ass." He gives me a funny look. What did I say wrong? It's obvious he finds her just as hot as I do. Maybe he thinks of me as some weird little blue animal who shouldn't care about hot chicks. "I can tell she likes you," I went on. "You know what that means? Sooner or later you're going to end up fucking her brains out. Just imagine what she looks like naked and let that be your motivation."

He kicks me. What's his problem? It's not as though he doesn't think about her when he jerks off. Why is he so embarrassed about admitting that sort of thing? It's like he's afraid some mystical enchantment will be broken if he admits that he's interested in girls.

We're almost there. Mac may be useless and boring now, but I'm going to mold him into something great. Maybe he'll be a killing machine, or a confident self-motivator, or just plain crazy—I haven't decided yet. All I know is that he has the potential to be so much more than he is now.

He follows me through the dense brush, walking backwards as he presses his coat against the dried brambles. I slip through small gaps, slithering across the dirt like a snake.

I arrive a few second before he does. The bathtub sits there, resting unevenly against a tree centered in a small clearing, with thin, wiry, thorned stalks of some plant underneath wound tightly around its clawed legs. The tub itself is covered with a respectable layer of rust and bears filthy rings around its inside that mark it as distinctly untouchable. The greatest impression of all is left by the dense layer of dirt, pine needles, and debris at the bottom. The forest has claimed this artifact of man as its own, filled it up with its essence, perhaps out of spite towards man's hubris in daring to bathe.

"You shouldn't need help getting started," I tell him. "You've done this enough times."

He nods but doesn't do anything for several seconds. Then, without warning, he quickly snatches a rock off the ground and hurls it at the bathtub as hard as he can, screaming something incoherent about rage comics and a whiteboard. I marvel at his unbridled fury as he delivers a mighty kick to the tub and falls over, clutching his angle as a _clang_ echoes through the clearing, sending a couple of birds flying to escape his madness. He's progressing faster than I ever expected. Soon, he won't even be able to look in a mirror without becoming physically ill.

I laugh at the spectacle of his flailing arms and stomping feet, as much because of his comical appearance as out of pure shock. He snarls, twists, writhes, rolls around on the grass and in the thorns. What have I done to him? Is he having a seizure or something? Will he even remember this when it's over?

He seems to have forgotten about the bathtub as he drives the pointiest side of a rock against a tree, smashing off strips of bark while letting out an anguished, inhuman howl muffled by his clenched teeth. I call his name without really expecting him to remember I'm there. What is going through his mind right now? How does an insane person think?

He stumbles and jerks around, tripping into the brush and scraping himself. The forest is not kind to people in his state, even though they may belong here. I hope this isn't going to end with him going permanently over the edge and wandering away to his death. He's my friend, after all. Besides, there's still more work to do.

Suddenly he stops and sits down, cross-legged, hunched over, and breathing sharply through his nose. I try to apply some kind of metaphor involving the bathtub to his mental state. Does the drain lead down into the underworld just as this bizarre fit leads to his unconscious, to the truth of who he is? That's not quite it. This might be one of those situations where things just happen because they happen.

His whole body is shaking. This might not be good for his health, but it'll build character. As his breathing returns to normal he looks dazed and lost, looking around the clearing in an attempt to identify it. He is back to normal, back to a pathetic state of mortal weakness and ironic self-disgust. In other words, his awareness of his surroundings is sufficient enough that he may once again be uncomfortable in his own skin. What a privilege.

"It felt like I was flying," he breathes, absently tracing a finger along the fresh cuts and bruises on his arms and legs. I can't believe it. He doesn't feel shame. He has no idea how he looked just now—or, better yet, he doesn't care.

I give him a warm smile and pat him on the shoulder. "You performed wonderfully," I tell him sincerely. "Keep it up and soon you'll be ready to take on the world."

On the way home he carries himself assertively, something I've never seen him do before. This is the posture of someone who knows what he wants from life and isn't afraid to take it. It's bound to wear off sooner or later, of course, but at least now I know what he's capable of.


	19. Chapter 19: Body

Chapter 19: Body

What role did school play in my life? I felt like it was taking up less of my consciousness than the year before, even though the hours were the same and there certainly wasn't less homework. I would sit next to Frankie in history class and write her notes that she had to decode with a cipher. Even when translated into plain English, most of these notes weren't about my affection for her, but she would smile nevertheless.

Bloo would often disappear from my sight, slipping into large crowds in the hallways and bringing me back random bits of gossip. He would spy on people at random, reaching beyond my eyes and ears to tell me things I couldn't and didn't care to find out on my own. "He's blackmailing that girl with the green shirt about something, I'm not sure what. You see that girl over there, who just came out of that empty classroom? She's sleeping with Mr. Hatcher. Isn't that fucked up? It's kind of hot, though. Also, pretty much all the girls in the drama department hate each other."

Naturally, his attitude towards Frankie remained less than innocent. "Write her a note saying you want to see her tits," he urged. "Make her blush." Since he could see everything I could, I had to guess his intentions were less than altruistic.

I definitely made more sketches in class than anywhere else. Something about being forced to sit still and listen to one person talk for forty-five minutes straight really fostered my creative drive. Gradually, I expanded the scope of my drawings, depicting medieval hamlets beset by werewolf attacks, floating cities in the sky, and crumbling towers in mystical forests. I guess school does serve a purpose, after all.

…

One day, I sat down to take a math test only to notice Bloo sitting over the teacher's shoulder, examining a booklet that had been laid open. "You should get 94.861 for number one," he called out. I suppressed the urge to shush him. Instead, I glared in his direction, hoping the teacher wouldn't notice, and worked out the problem myself. This was an 'open-calculator' test, so once I knew what operations I had to perform, I fished mine out from inside my desk and punched in the numbers. I blinked at the answer.

_94.816412568._

I frowned. Not wanting to give Bloo the satisfaction of using his answer, I kept four decimal places instead of three.

As I realized Bloo was leaning over my shoulder, I tried to subtly express my irritation through my breathing. "Okay, good," he said. "I'll go see what the next one is." _Too subtle,_ I thought.

He called out the answer again, so I tried to filter him out. Once again, he turned out to be right. I tried working backwards from his answers to the questions, but it seemed to have little effect on the number of steps or the amount of effort. Tracing my pencil as lightly as I could across a blank sheet of note paper, I wrote _Stop doing that._

Bloo raised an eyebrow in confusion as he hopped over and read my message. "Stop doing what? I'm helping. C'mon, don't you wanna finish the test faster so you can get out of here?" He ran back over to the answer sheet.

…

I finished the test hoping I'd gotten at least one answer wrong, and that I wouldn't be suspected of cheating. During the free period that followed I went for a walk through the school, trying my best to look like I was going somewhere. This is an important skill to learn if you get lost often. I moved through hallways looking straight ahead, keeping my head high and my jaw firm in order to indicate how sure I was of where I wanted to go.

Suddenly Brian appeared at my side. "Hey," he said. "What's been up with you? I feel like I haven't talked to you in forever."

I was silent for a few seconds. This was Brian, my childhood friend. Why did I need a moment to remember something like that? Maybe my memory was getting worse.

"Yeah, I guess you haven't."

"We should hang out."

"There's that new movie we could go see."

"Which one?"

"You know, that indie film that everyone's going to see. There was a bunch of viral advertising on Facebook. I think it was about ghosts or something."

"Alright, sure." His expression had soured at the word 'indie' and he now shuffled away with an oblique "See you later"—just as I had planned.

Somehow I ended up on the roof. I looked around, surprised—I never knew the stairs led to the roof. There were vents and fenced-off metal structures which, for all I knew, might just have been there to fill negative space. I heard a siren in the distance and something shifted in my stomach. I moved from vent to vent, staying low and near cover as much as I could. There was somewhere I had to go, after all, but I wasn't sure where. There was a subtle change in the nature of the sunlight, as though the clouds had shifted, only there were no clouds. Out all around me the city hummed; I could see a dog park not too far away, from which issues the occasional bark or howl.

I stopped as I rounded the corner of a small square of fence. Standing near the edge of the rooftop was a dark, vibrating figure, a shapeless shape come here only to mock my naïve existence. I drew a sharp hiss of breath, there was a flash of red followed by a flash of black, and then the figure was gone. I became aware that a harsh buzzing noise had just ended, though I hadn't noticed it while it was present.

The siren was still going. I realized it had something to do with where I was headed. Was it the fire alarm? It couldn't be, I realized as I returned to the stairs, shuffling down them as quickly as I could. The hallway was full of people, but I knew they wouldn't trouble me if I kept my hands in my pockets and my head down. Soon I was outside on the paved walkway, getting closer to the sirens.

_Sirens,_ I thought. They weren't police sirens, so what was going on? _Siren. Sirens._ There was a clue in the word. As I moved out towards the open, grassy field connecting the campus to the forest, it struck me—it wasn't a siren I was hearing at all, but a siren _song_, an otherworldly wail coming from someplace close yet distant, someplace that would be better than where I was no matter where I heard it. I wasn't sure how my ears had heard a completely different sound based on the name for the sound alone, but as someone in high school with an imaginary friend, that sort of thing was the least of my worries.

I took a glance behind me at the school's crowded, crisscrossing walkways. Bodies were in motion but the minds did not take notice of me. They might as well have been automatons, or was that a selfish way to think? I moved into the forest, following those hauntingly beautiful voices.

I traveled around a small loop, squinting carefully in all directions. Something was wrong here. Weren't the sirens supposed to lure unwary sailors to their deaths against the rocks? Then again, they weren't supposed to be real to begin with. Suddenly it struck me—where was Bloo? I whirled about only to see him several yard behind me, sauntering along, unconcerned. I relaxed somewhat and tried to picture what I would find after following the sound. Was I getting a visit from my parents? Would I learn who had created Bloo? Would I receive the divine assistance I needed to finally feel comfortable in my own skin?

It wasn't until several minutes later that I realized I was going in circles. It seemed as though the source of the song was moving, my directional hearing was lying, or there was no source to begin.

Suddenly, the song ended on a short plagal cadence, a shiver-inducing chord that spanned Heaven and Earth. I was left alone with Bloo in the not-quite silence of the forest. Remembering that time existed, I ran back down the trail, towards school. I wasn't wearing a watch, but I suspected I was late for my next class.

When I returned to the campus, there seemed to be far fewer people walking around than before. "Guess they're in class," said Bloo, echoing my thoughts. A few people eyed me strangely as I passed them, but I convinced myself they were looking at someone or something else. As I walked through a central walkway, an alarming spectacle caught my eye.

A large group of people had formed a tight, chaotic circle near the base of one of the taller buildings. As I got closer, I realized that they all seemed to be looking downwards and keeping a certain distance from something on the ground. Of everything that I observed, it was that distance which most unnerved me—what could high school students possibly show that much respect for?

In an effort to avoid drawing attention, I immersed myself in the crowd. As I reached the innermost layer, I immediately realized what we were looking at without really understanding. This was a moment of discovery and learning first, and a moment of shock and disgust second. A crumpled, broken body lay on the ground, with splintering bone poking out through one leg, awkwardly sprawled-out limbs, and a neck bent at an angle that unmistakably spelled _dead._ The thing-that-was-a-person was male, with blonde hair and broken glasses. It wore jeans and a brown jacket over a white shirt. Nothing struck me as familiar, so I satisfied myself that I did not know and had never seen this individual. I slipped through the fearful whispers surrounding me, mentally preparing myself to fake another destination. As Bloo skipped alongside me, away from the death circle, I absently wondered if this meant class would be cancelled. Was that a bad thing to think about at a time like this?

Frankie appeared and for some reason we were both sitting down at a bench. How did that happen? "So I guess you saw the body, huh?" Her tone was strangely tentative. I suspected there was far more to what she wasn't saying that what she was.

"I don't understand what happened." That was odd—I sounded the same way.

What was she saying with her expression? She was searching for something important in my eyes, asking me a question without posing it aloud. "I feel like there must be a whole story that we all missed. I don't even know who that guy was, but I guess someone hated him enough to want to kill him, huh?"

I gave a small start as Bloo hopped up next to her. As my eyes darted to him, Frankie looked over her shoulder at the wall behind her. Bloo laid his hand on her temple and her shoulders immediately relaxed. Bloo dusted off his hands as he jumped down, under the table. When Frankie looked at me again, it was with a soft, sad smile.

"In any case, I don't think we have anything to worry about right now. They'll find whoever did it, and we'll be safe. It's a tragedy for them, but for us, life goes on, right?"

"Right."

"That's not an insensitive way to think, is it?"

"Of course not. I'm relieved you said it first so I didn't have to."

"He was going to die eventually anyway."

"For all we know, he had it coming. Who was this guy?"

"It doesn't matter now."

"Soon he'll be out of sight and out of mind."

"Better him than us."

On an impulse, I reached out and set my hand on hers. She tilted her head to the side and broadened her smile. It's good to have someone who thinks like you, someone you can share your feelings with.

…

School was cancelled the next day. Frankie and I attended an outdoor movie and were sorely disappointed.


	20. Chapter 20: Police

Chapter 20: Police

For a few weeks after the mysterious death, everyone at school was a little bit quieter and walked a little bit slower. A few teachers started their classes by giving their condolences to the deceased—whose name, it turned out, was Rudolph Tarrence. I sat there in the assembly hall, picturing a boy with a round, red nose and antlers lying in a coffin while his family grieved. I didn't find the image particularly funny, but I couldn't get it out of my head for the rest of the day.

…

One Saturday morning as I was preparing to leave for Frankie's, a knock came at my door. I answered it and invited in a pair of policemen, who seated themselves at the dining table. That didn't seem particularly polite, but I sat down across from them, figuring there must be something they wanted to ask me about.

"I'm Officer Keane and this is Officer Jacobs," said Officer Keane. "We were wondering what you could tell us about the day your classmate Rudolph Terrence died."

Bloo came in and hopped up on the table, where he sat on a placemat. "I was near the end of campus closest to the street," he said.

I didn't understand. Did he think they could hear him? As he looked at me expectantly, it occurred to me what I was supposed to do. "I was walking past the side of the campus that runs by the street," I said. "I heard what had happened and by the time I saw his body, there were people crowded all around it."

Officer Jacobs wrote something down on a notepad. "Did you know him before he died?" asked Keane. I shook my head. He cleared his throat. "We believe he was killed by a fall from the roof of the building he was found next to at around two o'clock. Did you see anyone on or near the roof around that time?"

"No," said Bloo. "I couldn't see up there from where I was." I repeated the statement. What was going on here? Surely these officers didn't have time to interview every student in the school. I decided I must have been chosen at random.

More writing. "From what we've heard," said Keane, "you came out of the woods about half an hour after Rudolph fell. What were you doing in there?"

"I was about to head home for the day," I repeated after Bloo, "because the teacher of my last class doesn't usually care if students don't show up, as long as they do well on the tests, but then I got a text from someone in my class saying I should come."

"Do you still have this text?"

"No. I usually delete them as soon as I read them." That last part was true.

There were more questions, all at least tangentially related to Rudolph's death. Bloo threw me off by calling out instructed responses in a singsong voice, twirling about, waxing eloquent as he spun my alibi from threads of purest silk. It was a shame I couldn't just tell them the truth, but I doubted they would have understood. I kept my hands still, my shoulders relaxed, my chin level, my eyes pointed at theirs, and a slight smile on my face. There was nodding, writing, more nodding, more writing.

Both officers thanked me for my time and gave me curt waves goodbye on their way out the door. I breathed a sigh of relief. "You know," I said to Bloo as I headed upstairs, "when they first showed up, I thought for a second that _I_ was a suspect."

"Imagine that."

…

That night, I dreamt of myself small and helpless, wrapped in a tight cocoon of warm, melted time. This structure was contained at the bottom of a larger cradle, padded with pulsing, veined, red bulges. I couldn't move or see past the rim of this place, nor did I want to. All I could see above me was bright, benevolent light, as slender, pale, gentle fingers reached down and brushed my fluid-soaked hair from my eyes. I tried to speak, but everything about my mouth felt clumsy and useless. Just as well—what would I have said?

Through bleary, watery eyes, I noticed that this loving being of pure light wore a diamond ring on its right hand. What did this signify? I searched for a face, but it was too bright and too beautiful to see in any detail. I heard words in a language that I couldn't identify, though it sounded familiar; words and phrases danced through my ears, tiptoeing around recognizable meaning in a way that was teasing but not cruel. I realized that I was somehow connected to the fleshy bed that contained me, for my heartbeat was perfectly in time with the red, glistening pulsations all around me. Perhaps this was what they call bliss, the state between existence and nonexistence.

I wanted to stay there forever. My heart aches when I think that there is a world outside that I have to go back to, a cold universe beyond this perfect place. I wanted to stay in my cocoon, burrow deep, and exist in soft slumber forever. My food seeped into me from the red flesh; love permeated me from above. The white hand stroked the side of my face as I breathed deeper than I knew how and desperately wished I could stay asleep forever.

…

I awoke shivering, with a pounding headache, a dull pain somewhere near my navel, and tears in my eyes. I had been struck by an acute sense of loss, a memory of a memory nibbling on my heart like a parasite. _I want to go back,_ I thought on a bitter impulse. Back to where?

It was still dark. To my relief, Bloo was sleeping with his back towards me. I looked to my mirror, which glared menacingly at me even through the tape. In spite of the gut-wrenching, nauseating fear, I couldn't help but feel curious about what I looked like these days. Maybe someday I would be ready to find out.

I lay back down, snug in my sheets, and settled into dreams of nothing.


	21. Chapter 21: Water

Chapter 21: Water

Before long the time came to return to the docks. For whatever reason, Bloo hummed video game music the entire way there. I couldn't name where most of it was from, but it all sounded catchy. The clouds seemed to express a special sort of motionlessness, as though they would look exactly the same in ten or a hundred years' time.

As I stepped out of the car I was hit by the distinct impression of grey air and cool sunshine. It was as though a filter had been placed over my eyes and the air conditioning on my skin was set a few degrees too low.

The docks looked about the same as last time. I glanced down at Bloo, who wore a sly, almost imperceptible smile. I set out along the familiar route, past the people who might as well not have been there, whose business was routine and mundane, and couldn't possibly be as important as mine. My footsteps alone stood out amongst all those I heard as I moved briskly forward before stopping suddenly.

The pickup truck was there.

It wasn't _the_ truck—it couldn't be—but it looked about right. It was green and parked right on the ramp, with the back end facing the water. I approached it steadily, closing the distance with the same certainty by which the seasons pass and night becomes day. I slowly ran my fingers along the front of the truck, making circles around the headlights and brushing a little grime off the windshield. There was an air freshener inside, though I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be shaped like. I moved around, poking and prodding, invisible to everyone around me because they were invisible to me, alone because I wanted to be.

The back of the truck was filled with long wooden planks stacked high and neatly, all bundled with fraying rope. I stood on the flat, level surface between the ramp (which, I observed, was wide enough for several trucks) and the edge of the dock, which gave me about three feet of room. I realized that the ramp was there to make the process of loading and unloading easier when a boat was docked adjacent to it. Objects are made for a purpose; things happen for a reason. I licked my lips with equal parts hesitation and anticipation as I fumbled with one of the latches on the back of the truck. What was I trying to find out? As was often the case, my hands knew while I didn't. As I moved on to the other latch I realized something wasn't quite right.

A thrill of terrified excitement shot up through my stomach. I was so _close._ It was on the edge of my mind, the tip of my tongue. Tendrils of thought lapped at the answer like flame—I _knew_ how they had died, but I couldn't quite _think_ it. There was a resistance that made it difficult to open the second latch, a friction somewhere, weight from the boards. With a jolt I realized that I was standing exactly where my parents must have stood, and that I was about to die the same way. I stumbled backwards, tripped, fell down and away.

My ears filled with the sound of screams just as my stomach inflated with the shivering sensation that was my body's code for adrenaline. I felt a splash, followed by a cold, wet, sensation, followed by a floundering confusion around my nose and mouth. _Don't drown, _I reminded myself, but it was difficult to concentrate when the saltwater around me had turned blood-red and the screaming was so loud as to block out any rational thought.

Still, my arms and legs worked on their own, thrashing and spinning in ways I was in no shape to plan. I reached for something, anything, only to fall headlong into more water. I had the vaguest sense that I was being dragged down, or at least the direction I thought was down. Everything spun, everything was noise and pure liquid terror—terror as a medium, like water.

Suddenly I felt a shuddering pain in the side of my hand. Something hard and obstinate had stopped it in the air or the water, and now my entire weight began to shift as I grabbed hold of whatever I had struck. _I can steady myself,_ I realized. The screaming grew a little quieter, though it was still completely audible. I kept reaching and touching, more tentatively this time, and before long my entire weight was borne on these sturdy, horizontal pieces of metal. _Ladder_, I thought. I began to climb, gripping tightly, clenching every muscle in my body for balance. I was determined to put myself far from the water, the unthinkable openness.

Colors and loud, angry noises danced in front of my eyes like tiny devils made of light and sound. Everything was so electrically chaotic and cruel that I might as well have been blind. Still, my shaking body dragged itself up, the water dripping off of me and back to its wretched home as I breached the last rung, leaning and then tumbling forward, scrabbling away from a nightmare I'd kept frozen in the back of my mind until today.

I was shaking like mad but there was still no time for rest. I got up on one knee and forcibly pushed myself into a standing position, knocking aside two or more annoying somethings that might have been people. I moved forward, thinking to ensure there was no chance I could fall back in. The world was still meaningless abstractions of color and hatred, but with a little squinting I got a sense of the obstacles that might block my path. I began to take a few steps, halting and lopsided, but I stood picked up speed and straightened my back. There were eyes everywhere, all pointed at me, but all they did was twinkle dim light like all the other afterimages dancing through my field of vision. Saltwater dribbled from my mouth, but the taste didn't really bother me and there would be plenty of time to breathe normally later.

I felt deeply sick as I realized the screams were coming from my parents. _I knew right from the start, _I thought to myself in a grim tone_, that this game of pretend wasn't going to be a fun one. _

I pondered how I would get back to my car when everything around me was either some kind of interdimensional monster or an abstract painting come to life. Was this the sort of air I could swim through? I tried, stumbled, fell. I pulled myself up using some sort of outcropping on a wall that was flashing so many colors it would've given me a seizure if I weren't already having—whatever this was. I quickly learned to identify my surroundings not by sight, but by the feel of the ground beneath my feet. There was hard pavement here, wooden steps here, grass here. I fell again, but the soft, cool grass was gentle in catching me. While I lay on my stomach, I took the opportunity to examine the blades of grass closely, comparing how they should have looked to how they did. Each blade was a writing, electric blue tentacle with an urgent flashing white light at the tip. The frantic motion must have been my brain's way of telling me that grass is alive, but it unnerved me. I hastily pushed myself back up and set off exploring again.

Where was Bloo? I'd have thought he could help me through a situation like this one. The grass gave way to pavement and it occurred to me that I was now in danger of being hit by a car. Why couldn't this be a good journey, like the one that turned darkness into a fluid and the night sky into a kingdom of unknowable wonders? Or would I have to wait until nighttime for that?

I managed my way onto something I was reasonably sure was a sidewalk. I touched the buildings with my left hand, averting my gaze from the faces that would surely have given me strange looks if they even looked like faces to begin with. I had made five or six mad dashes across crosswalks before realizing that I should've been able to reach my car without going to the sidewalk at all. The screams followed me the entire way.

The trip back was no better. Everything still looked like nothing—nothing useful, anyway. I saw red, green, and blue, along with colors outside the visible spectrum, like the color of death and the color of time. These are elements that slip through our world as surely as any other, and I saw them as plainly as I could in my distressed emotional state. Finally I made it back to the parking lot. I made it a few steps in before I realized that every single car looked like a giant quivering slug. This, I suspected, would make it very frustrating to figure out which one was mine.

Instead, I curled up into a ball and wept. Why couldn't I go _back?_ I wanted to go back when I was at school, I wanted to back when I was at home, and I wanted to go back now. Back where?

I didn't stay put for long, but I was still in no state to find my car. I stumbled around, finding my way back to the grass, which at least knew how to take good care of me. Gradually I realized that the screaming was getting quieter. I shook my head, rubbed my eyes, heard a familiar voice.

"Jesus dude, this is the most fucked up I've ever seen you. Maybe this is a little late, but you _really_ shouldn't stand behind the trucks when they're parked like that."

Everything hit ground within the span of about five seconds. There was gravity, the colors fixed themselves, and things were things. I was sitting cross-legged on the grass, still stinking of the sea, and Bloo was standing across from me raising an eyebrow in concern. I glanced around. People were staring at me from a distance, with fearful or disgusted expressions. _I'm not someone to help, _I realized. _That entire time, I was just some sketchy, crazy guy stumbling around the beach and scaring the kids._ It was a wonder the police hadn't shown up.

"Bloo," I whispered sharply. "I'm okay now. Let's go home."

…

As close as I came, I still don't quite remember what happened all those years ago—there's just one or two pieces missing. Above all, that experience made me suspect there was a good reason for me to forget.


	22. Chapter 22: Knife

Chapter 22: Knife

I crawl through the wet grass. Today is a sunny day. My mom and dad are by the back door. I see a tree, clouds, and flowers. I stand up and run to the flowers. I fall down.

There is a sound on the other side of the fence. I go quiet so I can hear it. Something starts climbing over the fence so I look up. There is a big blue animal standing up there. He jumps down.

He waves to me. "Hey there. You look like you could use a friend."

"Do you want to be my friend?" I ask.

He nods. "My name's Bloo. What's yours?"

"I'm Mac. That's my house over there, and those are my parents."

Bloo makes an angry face at my parents but then he smiles. "That's a really nice house you have. I think I'm going to have a look inside." It's rude that he didn't ask permission first, but I don't mind him going in there so I don't say anything.

I follow him back to my house. "This is Bloo," I say to my parents. "He's my new friend."

They laughed. "Hello there, Bloo," said my dad. "You and Mac play nice now, okay?" Bloo growled like a dog. I showed him all of my toys and all of my books.

"This is my superball," I say. "This is _Goodnight Moon_. It's a really good book. This is _The Little Prince_ and this is _The Very Hungry Caterpillar._ These are my legos and those are my Hot Wheels."

He dumped all the legos in a pile and started putting them together. I watched for a few minutes to see what he was making but it was hard to tell.

"So," I said, "where are you from?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. One minute I was climbing up your fence, and the next I was in here."

"And before that?"

"Before that there was nothing."

"Wow! So you were just born?"

"I guess."

…

Later I went into the kitchen to ask my mom for a snack. She was doing something over the sink so I waited for her to finish. Bloo jumped up on the counter and started looking around. I was about to tell him that he shouldn't be on the counter when he picked up a big knife.

He started walking towards my mom and I realized he was going to hurt her. "No, Bloo!" I shouted. Bloo dropped the knife and my mom turned around and looked at me. "He was going to do something really bad," I said.

"Well, make sure that he doesn't, or he'll get in trouble," said my mom, putting her hands on her hips. I nodded and pulled Bloo back to my room.

"You can't hurt my mom," I whispered too him. "It's not okay."

"I was just playing a game," he said. He was still smiling.

"I don't believe you. You were going to hurt her really bad. If you do that, we can't be friends. Okay?"

Now he frowned. "Okay. I promise not to hurt her."

"Good."

After that I had to keep a close eye on Bloo. He acted a lot nicer after that, so I guess he must have learned to be good. Every night, I would watch him while he went to sleep to make sure he didn't go off to do anything bad.


	23. Chapter 23: Close

Chapter 23: Close

By the time winter trimester rolled around, I had completely forgotten about Rudolph's death. From time to time my mind would wander back to my terrible experience at the docks, but if there was a lesson to be learned from what had happened that day, it eluded me. Maybe this was one of those times when then there was no lesson.

School began to feel like a very large meal. Every day I was chipping away little bit more, digging my way through to the point where my plate was clean, whatever that meant. School is supposed to be a poor teacher compared to life, but I felt that my life was too ambiguous to teach me much of anything.

Bloo continued to provide me with more information than I knew what to do with. I learned in great detail about the strange, almost artistically perverse sex acts Mr. Hatcher carried out with his students. I learned that someone in my math class was deathly allergic to toothpaste. I learned which girls were bulimic and which boys were stalking them. What was the point of all this information? What precisely what I supposed to do with it?

One day Frankie was acting different somehow, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what had changed. "Did you get a haircut?" I asked her in the hallway.

"No."

"Is that a new shirt?"

"No."

"Are you wearing contacts?"

"No. Do I look different?"

"No, you're acting different." What was confusing about this?

Instead of explaining herself, she merely smiled and kept silent. For the rest of the day, I had no idea what she was hiding. Even Bloo seemed to be stymied. I sat through all of biology class wondering what was going on, drawing stylized question marks that appeared to pop out of my notebook.

…

After school we drove to a particular part of downtown just so we could walk on a particular sidewalk. "I feel like we've known each other a lot longer than we have," she told me.

"Time goes by faster as we get older."

"That's not quite what I meant. We connect really well. I feel like we understand each other, like this is somehow the way things are supposed to be."

"I feel that way too… but you're saying that like there's some sort of event at play here, like it's more than just an observation."

"Maybe it is."

As we drove to her house, I tried to remember if it was my birthday or something. It wasn't. At a glance in the rearview mirror, I noticed that Bloo was getting drowsy, even though I wasn't. This seemed strange for reasons I couldn't quite place.

When we got to Frankie's house, she walked in ahead of me, looking over her shoulder, once again with that strange smile that seemed to mean something. I wished she would just translate her face into English. Bloo lay down on a sofa in her living room, yawning and settling into a curled position that unambiguously meant sleep. Frankie led me to her room.

My stomach squirmed. This was the part in a horrible alien movie where she would reveal her true form and tear my head off, or the part in a documentary where idyllic paradise gives way to a mentally unbalanced downward spiral into the cold, shameful world of politics.

Before I knew what was happening, we were sitting on her bed and she was kissing me. This seemed normal enough, but given her previous behavior I half-expected her tongue to transform into a tentacle and slide down my esophagus before I realized how weird it was to be imagining something like that. I tried to lay out a number of more reasonable possibilities in my head, once again ruling out all of the holidays that didn't land on this day (which, to my knowledge, was all of them). She was more passionate than usual, but I couldn't imagine what that had to do with anything. My heart skipped a beat. Was she moving away?

She pulled away suddenly and I blinked in confusion as she started lifting up her shirt. Suddenly it started to make sense. I followed suit, thinking I couldn't go wrong by imitating her. As our lips met again I felt a sense of presence, of existing in a dense frame of experience that moved steadily and purposefully from second to second, filling my body and hers with a pounding weight that meant we were both alive. We were living fully in the moment, meeting each other at a place without ambiguity. We were sealing a pact which meant that for a time, we could not remember or plan, but only _be_, and in doing so prove to one another and to ourselves that we existed.

Existential revelations aside, I soon found myself sliding her pants off. It occurred to me that there was something I was supposed to ask, so I moved myself around to her ear, steadied my breathing as much as I could, and whispered: "Are you sure you want to do this?" In spite of myself and against my own volition, I was reminded of those moments in video games where you try to overwrite a save file or quit.

Frankie nodded. I moved onto my side, sliding my hand down her back, looking into her deep, fierce, eyes…

…and above them…

…up to the small space between her bookshelf and her ceiling…

…where Bloo was crouched, staring at us with wide eyes and a shit-eating grin.

I stood up and turned away from Frankie in one motion, sick to my stomach as I glanced around, grabbing my clothes.

"What's wrong?"

I looked at her. "I'm sorry. I can't do this right now."

"Why not?" I got dressed without answering. She hesitated for a moment before doing the same.

I moved to the doorway and stopped to look at her. Her eyes were still asking the same question. "It's not you, alright? It's me. There's something I need to sort out. Maybe this is something we can do later."

"I still don't understand… but do whatever you need to do, alright? And if you want to tell me about it, I'll be happy to listen."

"Yeah, I know." How could I ever tell her about Bloo?

From there, I moved out the door without looking back. Once I was out of Frankie's sight, I whipped around to look at Bloo, who was leaning against the garage with a smug smile. I spread my arms out, not caring how comical I looked. "What the _hell_ was that? What did you think you were doing in there?"

He raised an eyebrow. I wanted to punch him. "What do youthink? Without me, you never would've gotten anywhere with Frankie without my help. You know that just as well as I do."

"That doesn't give you the right to spy on us! You're sick, you know that? And I suppose you were just pretending to be asleep, right?"

He rolled his eyes. "Well, _duh._ Anyways, after all the help I've given you, I think I deserve some kind of reward. Did you really think I'd just sleep in the other room while you got to see her naked and fuck her?"

"_Yes!_ That's what anyone with an ounce of decency would have done!" I started pacing. I could hardly stand to look at him. "You know what? From now on, stay the _fuck_ away from me. You're a sick fuck and you've just lost the right to anything I might have owed you. Got it?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Yeah, I got it."

"I can't believe you're not even ashamed of yourself."

"Whatever."

It was no use talking to him. I walked back to my car and set off towards home without looking back. I bit my lip as I realized that Frankie's master plan had been both predicted and trumped by Bloo's.


	24. Chapter 24: Truth

Chapter 24: Truth

And so, here I am. I sit in the attic, watching videos of my infant self, trying to understand Bloo so I can get rid of him. If I concentrate hard enough, I can relax and stop worrying about who he is or what I am. This causes him to disappear for a while, but he always comes back. I sit amongst the dust and the old tapes and the cupboards and the clothes that were last worn by people who are now dead. Sunlight shoots through the window and bounces off slowly dancing specks in the air, reminding me what planet I'm on. I see little Mac whispering and playing; shouting and singing; hiding and seeking. I want so badly to understand so I can move on with my life.

The attic is full of spider webs, but the spiders never seem to be on them.

I know I can't stay here forever. I have to talk to Frankie about what happened, even if it means lying to her. What am I going to say?

I can't sleep anymore. Not with him watching.

…

School comes. I see Frankie in class but I avoid her eyes. Time flows quickly and there are lapses in my memory. I move from the cafeteria to class without knowing how I got there. Bloo isn't here, but I know he'll show up the minute I lose my concentration. Everything I think about makes me feel sick.

The end of the day comes. I go to talk her even though I still have no idea what I'm going to say. We go to my car and just sit for a while, listening to the sounds of the world settling into its afternoon like a lazy cat making circles around its bed.

She sighs and looks at me. "Was someone else there the other night?"

"What?"

"I heard you yelling at someone after you left. Who was it?"

My stomach turns to ice and my eyes water. I swallow a few times and slowly touch my face in a way that distinctly says I don't want to answer the question. When I look at her, though, she's still waiting.

"I think something's wrong with me." I speak in halting tones, trying to keep the words separate from the person they're coming from.

"With you, or with the person who was there?"

"I think I'm crazy." I want to speak in a normal tone of voice but I can't. I sound sicker or more upset than I mean to. I shouldn't be this weak. "There wasn't _really_ someone there, but—well, I've been hallucinating for a while now."

Her eyes widen. "What do you mean? How long?"

"Since before I met you."

I dare to look at her during the long silence that follows. She seems concerned.

"It's over," says a voice from the backseat. I barely refrain from jumping out of my skin.

"So…" says Frankie, biting her lip, "you were yelling at no one? Or at someone who wasn't really there?"

I shrug and nod, letting out a shuddering breath. "More or less. He's my childhood imaginary friend. I made him up when I was little and he went away when I was seven."

"She can't possibly stay attracted to you after you tell her all this."

"He's just this little blue blob. He showed up near the end of last summer. He always looks and sounds so real—as real as anyone else."

"She's kicking herself for making the mistake of going out with you. She's thinking, 'This guy's fucking nuts. How can I get out of this car? I can't believe I almost fucked him.'"

Frankie gently puts a hand on my wrist. "Have you told anyone else?"

"No. Just you."

"And now she's going to tell everyone. She's going to say 'Yeah, Mac is completely insane. He has this imaginary friend that he thinks is real. Also, he tried to rape me.' Everyone will hate you."

"What kind of things does he do?"

I look squarely in the rearview mirror. "He's an asshole."

"And you're a pussy. A spineless pussy who just blew his only chance at ever getting laid."

"I think even when I was little, he was trying to kill me or something. He told me to take everything I could find from under the sink and mix it together. I'm not sure what stopped me from drinking it. I didn't realize back then, of course."

"And what kind of stuff does he do now?"

I lean back, staring at the ceiling of the car. This has to be the most difficult conversation I've ever had. "There was… that night, he was watching us. I didn't realize it at first but he was up there on your bookshelf. He's completely sick in the head, which I guess means I'm completely sick in the head."

"At least you know he's not real. That means there's hope, right?"

"I'd like to think so." Once again, I shoot as much hatred as I could into the mirror, taking care to avoid looking at my own reflection. "I want to get rid of him forever, whatever it takes. I just don't know how."

"Do you think you should…" She hesitates. "..you know, see a psychiatrist or something?"

"I guess I'll have to, if it comes to that. I think I'm close on my own, though. I can make him go away for short periods of time if I concentrate. I just need to figure out what makes him come back so I can stop doing it."

"You're an idiot if you think you'll be better off without me. You're nothing without me. You can't talk to girls on your own, you can't figure out how your parents died, you can't even feel comfortable in your own skin. You're worthless."

Suddenly Frankie leans over and hugs me. "Just so you know, I don't think you're crazy. Or, if you are, it's not something wrong with your personality. It's still _you_; you've just—got this problem, right?"

"Right. And if I'm going to get rid of it, I'll just need some time to think."

"You know if there's anything I can do you help, you can just ask me, right?"

"I know."

…

I guess this is going to be the last time I see her for a while. I feel weak down to my bones and my insides feel wracked with nausea and dread. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that I might finally leave my childhood friend behind forever.


	25. Chapter 25: Kill

Chapter 25: Kill

How are you supposed to meditate? I'm closing my eyes, breathing deep, and sitting cross-legged. I know you're supposed to clear your mind, so I try not to think, but that seems to be the hardest part. The closest I can come is letting the soft sounds of the world around me distract me from any thoughts that might spring up in my head. There's the sound of birds singing; the passage of the wind through the trees and the landscape; and the rumble of some distant road, which I imagine as the babble of a brook. Bloo isn't here, so that should make things easier.

The sun warms my back and the space around me starts to melt away ever so slightly. My breathing deepens and I almost feel like I'm drifting into sleep, though not quite. My mind generates a sunny beach; places a few wooden boardwalks on it; drops some sailboats into the cool, gentle ocean…

…

This seems like one of those perfect days. We're all set to go crab fishing, and Bloo is even coming along. My parents take us past a very long row of buildings towards the boat we're renting.

"How do we catch crabs?" I ask my dad. "Is it the same as catching regular fish?"

He laughs. "No, it's different because they crawl around on the ocean floor. We have to lower cages down there with bait, and then pull them up when the crabs walk in."

"What do crabs taste like?"

"They're _delicious._ You have to try some."

As we were passing by a warehouse, my mom said "Hey, why don't we take a picture of all the boats that are out there?" She got out the camera and stepped around a truck that was in the way. Bloo winks at me. What's that supposed to mean?

"Thing thing has too many buttons. Which one actually takes the picture?"

My dad walks over to her. "Here, it's this one on the top, see?"

Bloo follows them. What was he doing? I walk around the side of the truck to get a better view. He reaches up to one of the latches holding the back of the truck shut, looks at me, giggling, and holds a hand to his mouth.

_"Shhh."_

I suddenly know what's about to happen. Before I can cry out, he opens the latch. The truck is on a slant, so its payload of steel cable comes cascading out, slithering like a mass of angry snakes. My parents and I all scream as the cables knock them into the water and fall on top of them, immediately spreading out, tangling, and sinking. I cry and scream for help while Bloo falls over laughing. People come over, shouting, as I lean over the edge of the docks, but I can't even see my parents anymore. There are bubbles rising up, and some of the cables still haven't sunk, but there's no sign of my parents. I realize that they're struggling down there, tangled up and trapped, dying. A pair of hands grabs me, pulling me away from the edge as the scene becomes crowded. I'm carried away shaking and sobbing, shutting my eyes as tight as I can and wanting this all to be a nightmare, wishing as hard as I can that I'll just _wake up…_

…

I wake up, heart pounding, the vision still as fresh in my mind as if it had happened yesterday. I finally know the truth.


	26. Chapter 26: Revenge

Chapter 26: Revenge

My uncle is gone. I know he won' hear a thing.

I creep around the house, deadly silent, looking and listening everywhere. I'm too furious to be afraid and the only thing that might get in my way is the sound of blood pounding in my ears. I freeze as I think I hear something, but it's just the radiator. I slink through the kitchen and up the stairs, reminding myself that it's just a matter of time. I crouch in a corner of the bathroom, hide under my bed, and sit on a windowsill. Every time I move, it's in a silent and efficient blur. He's coming, he's coming.

He's here. I detect the slightly wet sound of his movement around the corner of the hallway and tense every muscle in my body. This is the moment where it all comes together.

As the first flash of blue motion meets my eyes, I jump out. My foot connects with his face, knocking him back and smashing him against the wall. I drop down onto my knees, grab him by his gelatinous skin, stand up, and begin bashing his head against the wall. I shiver as I notice rivulets of red blood tricking down from the wounds I create.

I decide it's time for a little chat. I drop him to the ground and start herding him into my room with sharp jabs from my feet. He spits out a mouthful of blood. "Why?" he asks in a strained sob.

"You killed my parents." My tone is soft, intense, and focused. "I want you to know that I'm killing you because you killed them. You're a disgusting monster and you don't deserve to live." I stomp on him and he cries out.

"Mac," he groans. "It was an accident. It wasn't supposed to happen like that."

"Liar. You laughed at them while they drowned."

"No."

"Yes. You're a liar and a murderer and I'm going to kill you."

I grab my lamp and smash it across his head. I realize that the carpeted floor is cushioning my blows, so I reach down and begin to drag him away.

"I didn't realize they were going to die. I didn't know what death was back then."

I drag him out of my room, over to the stairs.

"Please—_ow—_don't—_ow—_do this…"

I drag him down the stairs, savoring each _bump_ that he makes on the way down.

"I was upset when they died, too. That's why I ran away. I couldn't take it."

Soon we're outside on the driveway and I throw him down on the asphalt. No one is there but I wouldn't care if someone was.

"Mac… Mac, listen. If you kill me, you'll be a murderer. That's not something you want on your conscience, is it? What can I even do? I'm just a helpless blue blob. Look, you've already beaten the shit out of me, okay? I'm sorry for what I did, for _everything_ I've ever done."

I stare down at him. Each breath I take is loud and ragged.

"You don't want to destroy another thinking, feeling creature. It's not in your nature. You don't want to cause that kind of suffering, the kind that happens when you end a life." His face is so bruised and bleeding that it's barely recognizable. He's shaking like a small dog.

He smiles. Maybe he notices that my shoulders have started to relax, or that my breathing is slowing down. "There, you see? You don't need to get so mad."

At the word _mad_, something snaps inside me. It's no longer a matter of deciding whether or not I really want to kill Bloo. All I know is that I'm doing it.

He flails his arms as I stride forward. "No, no, _no!_ Mac, I didn't mean it like that! I meant you don't need to let your anger control you, and you shouldn't—Mac, _stop, _please!"

I lift my foot up, letting it hover over him for a few seconds as he writhes in abject, unbounded fear.

"We're _friends,_ remember? I"—

_Crunch._ The foot falls; the face collapses under the force; blood splatters; the arms fly up and fall sideways. It all feels like one motion. I slowly lift my foot back up and look at what I have wrought without remorse.

…

I drive down to the docks. Bloo's body is in a cardboard box back home, but I expect it'll be empty when I get back. I sit at water's edge and gaze out, wondering what's left for me now.


	27. Chapter 27: Back

Chapter 27: Back

The weekend seems to last forever. I wonder briefly if it's winter break, but that isn't for another couple of weeks. As I sit on the sofa downstairs, drawing hundreds of tiny circles, I periodically make glances out the window. What am I looking for? For snow, I guess. It should have snowed at least once by now.

My uncle is away all of Sunday and won't be back until next weekend. That's fine. It just means I get the house to myself. I can do whatever I want. I can sit up in the attic, looking out the window every thirty seconds while drawing thousands of triangles. What a fun, safe way to spend a day.

I decide to call up Frankie to tell her that everything's been sorted out and that I'm perfectly fine now. After all, that's the truth. I scavenge my cell phone, dial her number, and wait without breathing until it goes to voicemail. I hang up, dial again, and leave a message. I sit for a couple minutes, trying to remember the message I just left. I decide it was probably perfectly articulate and go back to drawing.

_Creak._ This is an old house. It makes a lot of noise because that's what old houses do.

_Creak._ Funny thing: when the temperature drops suddenly, all the boards that makes up a house contract, producing creaking and bumping sounds. Oftentimes, we perceive these as someone sneaking through a house.

_Bump._ How many triangles am I on? This is the kind of challenge you do just for the sake of a challenge. When you have a concrete, simple goal, it becomes easy to work very diligently at it.

_Bump. _I wonder what Frankie's up to? She probably can't enjoy herself too much, worrying about me. Hopefully my message will clear things up. What's the difference between crocodiles and alligators again? I don't know why I just thought of this, but it's something that's always bugged me.

_Bump._ I don't want to die.

I jump to my feet and make a mad dash for the unused furniture in the corner, scrabbling behind it and curling up into the smallest ball I can.

I wait and listen. As he gets closer, the _bumps_ and _thumps_ grow louder and louder, as though from a monster much larger than Bloo. I flinch as the door swings open.

"Don't even try, Mac." I bare my teeth at the sound of his voice. "I know exactly where you are. I can see you. Get up."

I slowly rise, studying him carefully. As I feared, he's as good as new.

"You're the monster here, you know that?" He puts his hands on his hips and begins to move towards me. "I killed your parents by accident, and now you kill me on purpose? Do you really think that's justified? Do you really think you're the good guy here?"

I want to answer him, but I'm not sure he'd be able to hear me over the inexplicable sound of discordant violins now filling the room. "I was your closest friend in the world," he went on, "and you _killed_ me. How fucked in the head do you have to be to do a thing like that?"

"I killed you," I repeat hollowly. "You're supposed to be dead."

He makes a big show of rotating and examining his arms while twisting around to look at his back. "I seem to be perfectly fine."

"Then how _do_ I kill you?!"

He laughs. "Oh, what a great question! Let me just give you detailed instructions on how to permanently erase me from existence, since we're such good friends like that. It's only fair for me to tell you, now, isn't it?"

Without warning, I double over and begin to vomit. He laughs even harder than before.

"Seriously, though." As he begins drifting towards me, the violin noises grow louder. "When you killed me, I shrunk to a single point in space and time. Everything suddenly made sense, all at once. I could see my entire mind, all the points of connection to that tiny spark of life inside me—and I could see your mind, Mac. I know what I am, and I know what you are."

For a moment, it seems like he's circling me. Then I realize it's not him, but the room which is spinning. Everything behind him fades to near-complete darkness, unimportant abstractions of wherever it is we're supposed to be.

"Do you want to know what _really_ happened to your parents, Mac?"

"You're just going to lie like you always do."

"A lie would mean showing you more mercy than you deserve. Try to think. I saw what you saw of that day—me lifting that latch and the mess of steel cable knocking your parents into the sea. There's one crucial detail you missed, though."

The spinning stops and a glistening layer of bright black spread across the entire attic. I slide backwards on the frictionless floor, hoping desperately to distance myself from Bloo, but I can still hear his voice.

"Opening the latch made a little sound which your parents would have noticed. That alone doesn't mean anything until you realize that there were _two _latches. Do you understand what that means, Mac?"

I slither down the stairs, taking in the disorienting sight of paintings and photos melting and trickling down the walls as the direction of gravity steadily rotates. Bloo drifts down from the ceiling, his eyes alight with the fires of Hell.

"I'll tell you what it means. It means you killed them just as much as I did. What's more, you went for one latch at exactly the same time I went for the other. We only had a second to act and we both did the same thing."

I don't want to believe him, but in a flash, I remember it all exactly as he described. Surely this has to be yet another part of my hallucination, a trick to make me fall into despair—as though I'm not already there.

"You tricked me," I say through a mouth that keeps bouncing all over the room. "You wanted them dead right from the start."

"If that's true, then so did you. I still haven't told you the worst part."

My stomach sinks. In the shadows, I think I see flashes of monsters: a tall, slender red one; a huge purple one with giant gnashing teeth and horns; one with wild green hair and a long, crooked beak. They chant softly but make no moves towards me.

Some unseen force sucks away at the edges of my peripheral vision, draining them away until I can only look straight ahead. I can't move at all. Suddenly the mirror is in front of me and my stomach tries to jump out through my mouth. The tape slowly unwinds, revealing a little bit of glass at a time, slithering away. Suddenly I see it all, clear and terrible.

There, in the mirror before me, stands Bloo.

"The worst part, Mac, is that I'm you. I always have been."

My skin feels rubbery and diseased, crawling with foreign bodies. My teeth feel like shards of glass stuck in my gums and my eyes seem to weigh a hundred pounds each.

"I'm the part of you that killed your parents, but I'm also so much more. I'm all the little things, like when you're riding in a car with a small animal and you get the urge to throw it out the window. When you're holding something heavy and blunt and you feel this sudden itch telling you to smash someone's skull with it, that's me."

Everything in the mirror is blurred and rippling except for Bloo. As his mouth moves, I can feel my own copying it exactly. "You remember when you were fourteen and you added that girl on Facebook just so you could jack off to the pictures she took in a bikini? What about when you were eleven and you first figured out how to masturbate? I dined like a king on your shame. Everything wrong you've ever done fed into me—every lie, everyone you've ever hurt, everything you did that hurt you. I'm all of your insecurities, your fears, your secret desires, and all of your hatred wrapped up in one little blue bundle."

My face felt numb and a burning, tingling sensation spread across the rest of my body. "I want to go back," I say without meaning to.

"Back where?"

"I don't know." Everything is static and white noise. I think I hear screaming from somewhere very far away but I can't be sure.

"I'll tell you where. You want to go back to the womb. You never had a chance to grow out of your emotional dependence on your parents because you killed them, and now you want nothing more than to crawl back up into your mother's womb."

I shake my head even as my lips form the words. "You know it's true just the same as I do. If I'm a monster, than so are you. Frankie has only the slightest idea of how sick you are and she still won't want to see you again. She acted nice because she didn't want you to get pissed off and attack her, but now that she's away from you, she'll make up any excuse to keep you away. So you know what? Don't even bother trying to fix yourself. Don't think you can ever be normal. Just run away and go _back_."

The weight is lifted and I shoot up to a standing position. There is color and light again, but everything is still imaginary and twisted. I wrench my gaze from the mirror and dash towards the door, swinging it open so hard it crashes against the doorstop.

I keep running, not looking back, not thinking about where I just was or what just happened. The house may not be safe, but I can go to the shed. There are cobwebs everywhere, spiders crawling across my face, but I can't tell which ones are imaginary and which ones keep biting me so I don't bother brushing them off.

I stumble through branches, twisting and jerking around, dimly aware of small cuts forming on my limbs as push through thorns. Something small and bark-covered slaps my face; everything is a blur of sound and motion as I keep going anywhere but back. I know I'll get there if I just keep moving.

How long do I wander the brush? Hours, days, years, seconds. It must be getting dark by now but this is no obstacle. The air warps and I burst out into the world of light, radiant infrared shooting from every surface, shooting through my eyes and into my brain. The fringes of the clearing are filled with twisted, gnarled branches. Everything is curved.

I hopscotch across tiny, precariously dim patches of light on the ground, the absolute quantum collapse of infinite possibilities and total resolution of cause and effect, at least with regard to where my feet will touch the ground. I almost fall in my disoriented state but I don't because I wasn't going to.

I am shocked and violently alarmed as something big and flat smacks my face. I have just run headlong into the wall of the shed. Broken glass cuts me. I get splinters but those are part of me now so I have to love them. The sky twists and groans like a dying animal, purplish and sickly. My hands touch the wall of the shed and the whole thing ripples like cool water. I balance myself carefully, moving left, left, left—there's the corner! Around, find the wall again, left, left, left… there is a lot of blood now but it is glistening rainbow colors so that's probably okay.

Soon I am inside and it is time for the stairs. I scream and scramble towards them. Where is Bloo? I can't think about him. Stop. I move up the stairs, crawling, my mouth open as I taste the stale, dusty air. The ground becomes flat (albeit rough and splintery) and I am in an all black flashing room where I roll up into a ball and shake on the ground for a few years.

My stomach informs me that the elevator has stopped even though I'm not on an elevator. Angrily, I lunge for the box that has the snake in it. I scream as I open and it see a snake hissing at me. I was not expecting that. My eyes roll up into my head and I go blind as the snake's scales fuse to my skin, my spine jerking from side to side like a trout. I am a trout. I swim downstream.

The trail rescues me and tugs me along. There is a rope tied around my ankles and I can't move because I weigh a million pounds, but I'm in a hurry so I run as fast as I possibly can. Two seconds later I am out of the forest, I think, though "forest" means "bright colors, dust, light, sneeze" and those words mean nothing because I made them up, just now. Therefore I can't be sure I'm out of the forest, even though I know I am.

I drive down the street using my legs as a car. Soon I roll up to the doctor, which is great, because for the love of God I am bleeding everywhere right now. Also, the snake keeps hissing and wriggling around, which sucks.

The doctor and I spend a few days getting to know each other by screaming repeatedly. I'm in a hurry, though, so I ask him to fix me up. Unfortunately, it comes out as "Oh God what happened to you?"

I try to drop the snake so I can drive this crazy guy to the hospital without getting shot, but as I fumble with the intense chemical knots between my hands and the scaly snakeskin, there is a sudden, loud crack like a car backfiring, and the snake jerks mightily, knocking me backwards a few steps. The doctor yawns and lies down. _What the hell?_ I think. Is he taking a nap on the job?

He sighs contentedly from the asphalt. Rainbows flow from his supine form, trickling along the rough little contours of the road. "Thank you so much," he says with a smile. "I love you."

I try to tell him to get his ass up so he can help me, but my words come out as "Oh god, I'm hallucinating and I think I know what just happened and I'm so sorry." How did I bungle up the sentence that badly? What does that even mean? I shrug it off.

Something tells me the bad colors are coming, so I run through the good colors (which I think are green and red, maybe) back into the thing that I identified a forest earlier. Now, however, it's starting to look more like a carnival where all the games are tentacles and all the people are spiders. Millions and millions of spiders crawl all over my body, carrying me back towards the shed, dragging me through broken glass. I really need to clean that up at some point.

I stumble weakly inside, surrounded by a sublime glow that pervades the universe but is more visible here than anywhere else. My whole body shakes as I fall to my knees, causing an earthquake. Dust swirls around me, the nature of reality unfolds and flattens like a cardboard box, God shoots beams through my eyes and I become everything.

Suddenly I hear the cruel laughter of angels, angels who see Hell's prisoners climbing massive black spires which reach into heaven, and knock them back down. They laugh at me as Bloo laughs at me, they laugh at the civilizations plastered on the walls of the shed cascading down in avalanches of dust. Everything is nothing and nothing is everything. A beam of light descends from reality's center and reaches into my soul; my eyes light up as vibrating waves in space and time coalesce into two figures standing before me.

"You've grown so much." I weep with joy as I look into the smiling faces of my mother and father, perfect and unblemished by death. All around us, twelve foot tall angels with hollow eye sockets weep blood and dance in slow circles.

"It's so beautiful here in Heaven," adds my father. I hear bells from somewhere very far away. "We're so proud of you."

"But…" I swallow, and gravity wobbles unsteadily. "…but I killed you."

My mother shakes her head. "Bloo killed us. It was his fault all along."

"But Bloo is me."

"No, he isn't. You have an immortal soul, wonderful and pure, incapable of evil. It's a part of you that will always be, a part that Bloo can never touch. That soul is the _real_ you."

Everything is spinning, or maybe it was always spinning and now it feels like it's spinning because it's standing perfectly still. Suddenly my mother stands over me and I realize how tall she is. She leans down, lifts me up, and embraces me. I'm a child again. "I miss you both so much," I say.

"We miss you too, son," says my father. "Heaven isn't Haven without you."

"Come to Heaven with us," adds my mother.

Tears flow freely down my face, falling down a bottomless pit that opens out into parallel universes. Their love spills out into space, melting away the hard edges of matter. Dense life vibrates throughout my being. Infinite truth is contained within this moment. This is the time for me to know my purpose. "Is that really what you both want?" I ask. They look at one another and then back at me. They nod.

Suddenly, everything is draining away, my blood slipping into cracks between strange sideways directions. I hear a high whistling sound, a forlorn song sung from the Garden of Eden as the last human eyes to see it fade to grey. The spinning is too much. I feel an icy hot rush numbing my head as my parents whisper their final goodbye for now:

"Please hurry."

Everything collapses. I dive headlong into blackness.

…

I'm lying on the ground in the fetal position. The world is real, the room is real, I am real. Everything stands out so clearly that I could almost believe I'm in Heaven. The walls clean and crisp, high definition. My vision goes beyond 20/20, into layers of absolute meaning, folds of divine truth secreted between wrinkles in the air. Liquid light trickles outward across every surface, shimmering and perfect, like the tears of angels spreading over all of creation. Even though my clothes are soaked in blood I'm and in intense, shooting pain all over, even though I think I probably shot someone, I feel better than I've ever felt. I'm on my way.

I know it won't last. I have to act soon, before Bloo returns to drag me back down to Hell.

As I move through space, I marvel at the fluidity of my stride. I can smell the atoms of my body vibrating, separated by great spans of nothing. Everything is clarity and light. Every mote of dust in the shed is true; every inch of the floor has been, is, and will be. I arrive at the place where I know the gun is—which is to say the place arrives at me.

As I pull it down, it is not a snake, but a gun. A gun is a thing; it has a shape; it performs a function; it is what it is by any name. The idea and the thing are one, and they are both very real.

I move to the chair. The chair is a chair is a chair. This is not a place for uncertainty. Everything is everything. I exist. Heaven exists. I sit down.

I know I can't hesitate, so I don't. The barrel of the gun goes in my mouth. Outside, birds sing to celebrate whatever time of day it is. My hand trembles as I reach down, feeling for the trigger. I close my eyes, picture my parents' smiling faces, and pull.

I'll see you soon.


End file.
